Shameless Yearticking 4; If At First You Don't Scaup-ceed....

You catch the slippery little wotsit when neither of you are expecting it!


:D


Where else? Newton Dogs, of course!

Yes, there.

Yes, there's a story in the name.

I speak of Stover, known by the moniker due to the flat circular walk around the lake, used by millions of chavs and their pitbulls dog walkers up from nearby Newton Abbot and so rather like unto a greyhound track. Only much slower.
Despite all the hordes of dog [and baby] walkers, there is surprisingly often at least a half-decent wildfowl or two on there. Plus the woods have good spp. - easiest place to see Marshies and Bullfinches at daft range - plus the seething packs of very fat Squirrels...!
This is before you get to Summer and all the dragonflies.... :)


Anyways... I wandered over for yearticking purposes after work [duh], as there are insanely tame Mandarin [look down] and often Goosander to be seen. Plus you never know what else.

After seeing my targets and munching some lunch in what they call a hide [still better than anything on Exminster, eh RSPB?] - ie. spending too much time there, I resolved to properly count the 15-odd Tufties on the la.... Hold on a minute. That's a funny-looking Tufty.

That's no Tufty, that's a Space Station Scaup!!!!

Almost certainly the elusive bugger who made me go to Decoy*, I reckon;

Adult male Scaup

"Guys, guys, lend me a Tuft and some paint!"

"Just give it up, mate, you're burned"

It's one of those nasty brain tricks; you expect to see Tufties, with black backs and so on, so that's what you see. He did stay well out and with Tufties, and to birders who are looking at / for Goosander, little 'black and white jobs' are just Tufties, because 99 times out of 100 that's what they are. It's the same phenomenon as the 'rare maker' - where you see what looks like something rare out of a glimpse of something not {usually a Wren!} - only powered by expectation instead of hope.

Ahem.

Stop burbling and get back to the pics!

I could have led with this one..

Or this one

Goosander

Three present

Two Pochard

[female Tuftie in the middle]

Told you about the Mandarin

[three of them, too]

There's the other one.

Oooh. They are soooo insanely posey there. Your only problem is all the civilians trying to throw bread at them... I think there's something in the water, as one time not so many years ago, a Spring Garganey dropped in and he even posed a bit. For a Garganey. [You may recall awful pics on here]

:)

Things had gone well, the weather was good [at least for that day], so I decided to carpe the jugulum and try for Haldon Hawfinches.


I tried. What I found were all manner of non-Haw finches, with yearticks racking up, though only a couple of them actually sat down where I could see them.

Prepare for the more usual service;

Right in the middle

So's this one

Two Brambling [at least] in 19++ Chaffinches, up a way from That Bit. At That Bit, two groups of flyover Crossbills and one of flyover Redpoll the best. Not a sniff of flying nutcrackers, though.

Scenery;

Trees

Tree!

You do get nice views up there.
Oh well, worth a try. And getting horribly muddy..!


I finish with the sweet taste of gotthebarstewardonthefifthgo... :D

This is one of the benefits of yearlisting; unnatural happiness at seeing birds. :)



Be Seeing You...

[[*Or maybe not; 'Scaup reported on Decoy' the same day..?!?]]