Fourth Sunday, so I was out in the car park ready for the work party gathering, as we were chatting I heard a pipit go over, it gave a rising, raspier single note after which I saw it heading North towards the landfill.
It is always tempting with a call in your head to convince yourself you can see something different on a bird flying away from you...with bins, but when it comes to pipits that are pretty much the same size and don't call again, that temptation dies off quickly.
Was it a Rock Pipit, probably, but with no scope and one call, I had no chance to even have a stab at proving it to myself.
So off we went and I was crossing Tern Meadow at 10:06 heading for the scrape, when I noticed 3 birds coming towards me from the NE. Nothing stood out, I just lifted my bins and to my surprise 3 Goosander came into focus, they were about 500 feet up and flying steadily SE, so on their current path not likely to stay over DP airspace for more than a few more seconds. It is surprisingly tricky to sex Goosander from below without scope, but am fairly sure 1 was a male, probably 2.
This was a year tick get back from Rick's 2nd Jan birds, so I am well happy, 127 from 131 now.
Now I've checked and there has never been an October Goosander record at DP. this was the 94 October species, marking a new month high count.
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