Tuesday 3 November 2009

3rd November 2009

2 Goldcrests (probably migrants) visited my garden briefly during the late morning, and seeing as it'd been a few months since I'd last seen this species here (as far as I remember), thought it best I check Earlswood. Glad I did :-)

Cycled there during the afternoon. There were 15 Lapwings in the Hungry Horse field. Apart from 110+ Black-headed Gulls, the lakes seemed pretty quiet until I got to Terry's Pool, where I was really pleased to find a female Mandarin Duck associating with a few Mallards. Seeing her now takes my patch list up to 100! Yes, she wasn't the rarity I'd been hoping for my 100th, but Mandarin Duck was something of a bogey Earlswood bird for me, having dipped both of the birds reported in the last two years, so I'm still very happy. Unfortunately her companions flew off, and she followed, at c. 4:10 pm flying over the woods and out of sight.

M.P. Griffiths

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