I headed out to Aqualate Mere this morning to see the female Velvet Scoter that was seen yesterday. Most of the birds were down the far west end of the lake, but after scoping the birds for almost two hours I finally found it feeding quite actively, along with a nice redhead Smew. The Long-tailed Duck had also been seen earlier in the morning, but that seemed to have disappeared by the time I got there, although there were hundreds of birds there, so if it was feeding I could have easily missed it. Both Marsh and Willow Tit were visiting the feeders in front of the hide.
After I'd finished at Aqualate I dashed off to Gailey Res., where a Great White Egret, another Staffs tick had just turned up. Although it was hammering it down with rain when I got there, the bird was easy to see as it sat on the bank of the reservoir next to the A5 in the open. A Great Northern Diver also showed well in front of the sailing club.
I headed down to Cannock tip and then the Chasewater roost today. There were thousands of gulls in the roost with many more coming in whilst it was too dark to bird. The highlights were a juvenile Glaucous Gull and a juvenile Caspian Gull. There was also a redhead Goosander by the dam and about 30 Lapwing on the jetty.
The Dorset Brunnich's Guillemot had been very obliging and lingered until 30 Dec, so I decided to head down there on New Years Eve on my way to spending New Year in Stoke. I headed off at 4am and arrived at Portland Harbour at about 8.30am. After getting the run around for about half an hour I finally managed some decent views of it and then later in the morning it showed really well where I got some nice photos and video of it. It only dawned on my when I entered my tick into BUBO that this was my 500th bird (under UK400 club rules, I'm only on 480 for the proper BOU list).
An added bonus is that this morning (1 Jan 2014) the bird has not been seen. Talk about leaving it late!
There were plenty of other birds around the harbour, making it a very enjoyable day. 6 Black-throated and 5 Great Northern Divers, Black Guillemot, Razorbill, Common Guillemot, Red-necked Grebe, ~100 Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Eider and a Glossy Ibis at Radipole were all really nice to see.
