Rediscovering the Joys of Birding
• Monday, March 3, 2008 - Port Meadow Ruddy Shelduck
I've not been able to get out for a proper birding session this weekend as we had guests over for Mothers Day. However on Saturday I managed a quickie 45 minutes on Port Meadow. I'm very lucky to have such a great spot no more than a couple of minutes bike ride from my front door.
I nipped out and managed to see 5 redshank, 5 ruff and 6 dunlin. There were also 2 common shelduck on the floods which have been there for the last few days. The usual ducks were there in great numbers as well (widgeon, teal, shoveler, pintail and gadwall) as well as lapwings and about 50 golden plover. There were also the usual gulls (BH, LBB, Common, GBB + Herring). I keep looking through the BHG for Med gulls but have yet to spot one on the Meadow.
On Sunday, myself and a few of the guests went out for a post-lunch walk. We went over to the far side of the river (the other side from the Meadow floods for those who know Port Meadow). I had taken my bins and was keeping a weather eye out for anything unusual when I spotted some unusal ducks - larger than the rest of them and an usual reddish colour. A quick look through the bins confirmed them as ruddy shelduck which was a good find. I had heard that someone had seen a pair about a week ago on the Meadow though they'd not been on the floods at all, just the common shelduck. There were a pair of ruddies at Farmoor reservoir a while back so it may be the same ones. I've no idea about their provenance and they may well be escapee's but I'm happy to included them on my year list.
Two new entries for the year list:
093: Common Shelduck
094: Ruddy Shelduck |
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