Saturday 16th February

Well we are certainly being blessed with some good birds of late. The Black-necked Grebe and Ferruginous Duck remain with the BNG showing a little closer to shore than it did when it first arrived a couple of weeks ago. JA arrived just after me this morning and we wandered along the main path and while scanning the Alders, at the Crescent, for Siskins and/or Redpolls a Bittern flew out of the reed bed behind us! We were quite surprised to say the least and watched as it flew across the lake to the main lake hide reed bed. By this time DK had arrived so we wandered back along the main path to see if he had seen it, which he hadn't, and no amount of scoping the reed bed was going to find it at that distance!

We continued our usual rounds and a Little Egret was a nice surprise at the north end of west Fingers. We'd passed the view point several times earlier with no sign and suddenly it was there when we got to the far end of the Spit. We also spotted a Water Rail in the Crescent.

The rest of the rounds was pretty normal stuff although there were a group of Barnacle Geese on 100 Acre, a regular occurrence this past week per DK. A couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers were drumming in the Long Hedge/Woodland Walk and another was drumming over on Kings Mead.

A couple of Siskins were in the Alders across the Navigation Channel. Gadwalls, Tufted Ducks and Pochards were all present but no sign of any Shoveller or Teal. JA had a couple of Little Grebes on the main lake.

We checked out the main lake hide with the hope of seeing the Bittern again and were lucky when we flushed it from the reed bed. We witnessed a lovely fly past as it headed across to the island and dropped in at the west end.

Bittern

Ever the optimists we scanned the end of the island when we got to the south side fishing swims and were amazed to see the Bittern sat on a branch out in the open at the west end of the island! A quick text to the county recorder who was just driving out of the car park, as it turned out, and he managed to get back and on to the bird as well as putting the word out.

So that was it, another pretty good morning in the park and for once it wasn't raining and was relatively warm, wonders will never cease.