Tuesday 9 July 2013

Teal review

Am on a roll and have spent 10 minutes looking back, it appears the first time we ever had over 100 birds was in the big freeze from late December 2008, all local birds were pushed in by icebound lakes on all but LFGP, part of BSL & WSL. This pushed the highest count to 112 on 1st Jan 2009 LFGP, this rose further to 130+/11th.

Then another big freeze in December 2009, pushed the highest count to 206/19th, this continued into Jan 2010, when numbers bounced around 150 to 200, but it wasn't until after some thawing that yet another new high count of 263/31st Jan 2010 with all the birds only on Lavell's & LFGP.

My conclusion is that it looks like LFGP is underpinning an average peak of about 100 birds Jan to Dec since 2009, so the future looks good as a winter species.

On another note in the 1999 bird report, there are sketchy details of Teal breeding on Lavell's, pair + 1 duckling 28th June. Anyone who knows anyone who was birding here then, please share any information you have because we have next to nothing, no initials, no pictures, no record in the Berkshire Bird Report.

Overall I feel Teal are on the up and almost a 'recorded in every month' species, albeit on one day in May and June, I expect returners by July nowadays and trust our development of the shallows at LFGP will only bring more and facilitate a smashing of the 300 barrier.

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