Friday AM

I was out with SH this morning as we both had the day off. First stop was a quiet Bothal Pond, 107 Canada Geese there.
At Cooper’s Corner just outside Ashington we spotted 7 Whooper Swan in a field.

East Chevington was our next destination. As soon as we looked on the South Pool we saw the Green Winged Teal in the SW corner.
Rather than shying away from the other Teal like GW normally do this bird was aggressive towards the male Teal as it swam around the females.
Also a Redhead Smew showed briefly in the SW corner of the pool.
In the field between the South Pool and the road were a lot of Grey Geese and at least 16 Whooper Swan.

The hour we spent at the North Pool was even better as we managed to see the Slavonian Grebe, 3 Scaup (1 male, 2 female), 1 Drake Red Breasted Merganser, 1 Drake Common Scoter, 1 Otter and another Redhead Smew.
The Common Scoter was sitting on west bank amongst a flock of Wigeon before flying back out to sea.
The other Smew was quite close in at first before flying off to the back of the pool. The best sighting of the day though was a Bittern, which jumped out form the reedbed in front of us before flying across the pond and landing in the reeds. It was seen again a few minutes later as it flew a quarter of the way across the pool before turning back and landing in the reeds in front of the L shaped hide.

On our way out of Chevington near Red Row, a Peregrine was chasing a flock of Woodpigeon.

West Hartford was our last stop. Only one Short Eared Owl was showing as was the Fox which spooked the Lapwing flock.