Saturday 14 January 2017

Newmillerdam - 14 January 2017

About 15% of the water (at the southern end) was covered in thin ice this morning, reducing to about 5% by mid afternoon. The sunny and calm weather made it a great day for birding at Newmillerdam with plenty of noise from nuthatch, mistle thrush and a song thrush in full voice.

A flock of c40 redwing were in the trees by the village green and a mixed flock of goldfinch (c30), siskin (c10) and brambling (c5) were in the arboretum, as was a great spotted woodpecker.

The whooper swan and pochard were still present and will hopefully still be present in the morning, so I can get something different on the WeBS count!

A cormorant left flying north at 13:35, but I hadn't seen it earlier in the day and a couple of buzzards were soaring over the southern end of the lake, before leaving east.

A single common gull was stood on the ice this morning in with the black-headed gulls.

Also Canada goose (34), coot (24), tufted duck (24), goosander (8 - 3m/5f), moorhen (5), little grebe (1), kingfisher (1) and mallard on the water.

My personal best of 44 species here today including three new for the year (brambling,common gull & siskin) brought the Newmillerdam year total to 54.

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