Napton was
mercifully drier than when I was last there; grey and cold, with the trees at last
shedding their leaves, but a pleasant enough day for a good couple of hours of early winter birding.
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| The stunning male pochard (credit: Sailesh Panchal) |
The water
was still dominated by the usual coots (c80), tufted ducks (14) and gulls (c100
black-headed and 18 common).
But alongside the winter-only common gulls there were one or two other less familiar faces among
the locals - three shovelers and my first pochard of the season, a male bird doing what pochards like doing best - nothing.
The hedges
and trees around the boundary also proved to be slightly more full of life than the pochard, with a total haul
of 34 species including yellowhammer, redwing, fieldfare, meadow pipit,
bullfinch, treecreeper and great spotted woodpecker.
Flyovers /
fly bys included six lapwing, a snipe, three skylarks and three more shovelers.
Bird of
the day: Pochard (Aythya ferina), a beautifully plumages diving duck (male only, of
course), essentially a winter visitor to these parts - but spectacularly somnambulant
while here. Sleeping is very much a pochard's thing.
