I woke around 07:00 and lay there thinking I should get up and go out early for a change. After umming and ahhing for 15 minutes I got up and went straight out, thinking a Barn Owl might still be possible in the half light.
As it happens it wasn't, but undeterred I went into Bittern hide and scanned around, A Water Rail was scampering along the reed edge heading towards the hide, the usual number of Teal, Shoveler, Wigeon, Gadwall, Tufted Duck, 2 Little Grebe, 11 Pochard, the female Red Crested Pochard, then joined by the male no doubt flying in from Sandford - hopefully they won't disappear overnight due to new years eve fireworks.
Not much else showing I went over to check Sandford, another 7 Pochard and again a good stock of Wigeon and Gadwall, with many more Wigeon on BSL. I put in a cursory look for Goldeneye, but decided the car park field was my preferred option.
And I'm glad I did, after 10 minutes of not much more than a single Great Black-backed Gull, I picked up a distant flock off birds in my bins and needed the scope to confirm a nice flock of about 300 Golden Plover, from where I stood at recently expanded landfill viewing area at the bottom of the car park field, they were well left of the typical area I pick them up, pretty much directly behind Ron's hide, my guestimate was that they were over Thames Valley Park area and heading SW.
I sent out Tweets and WhatsApp messages and when I looked up again I could no longer pick them up. I scanned around the landfill for other species, a Mistle Thrush, a Nuthatch called near Lea Farm, but nothing else really. I scanned one more time and saw the Goldies again, but this time they were nearer and the flock had grown massively, to around a 1000+ in one spread out flock and moving back and forth, seemingly reluctant to move on. I reached for my phone to update the Tweets and WhatsApp messages, when I noticed 5 large wildfowl coming in over the landfill heading slowly SW, bins up and they were Shelduck...in December "how weird and cool is that I said".
The Shelduck were gone quickly so I went back to the Goldies and watched them for another 10 minutes, but they never got any closer, the flock splintered a few times, but always converged again, the last time I saw them they were considerably further to the NW so somewhat beyond Play Hatch.
The Goldie flock is the biggest by three fold of any count I've had, or ever heard of around DP, the Shelducks were the first December ones since 1 on 22nd 1984, along with 3/15th & 2/22nd 1981.
There have been 3 November records in recent years, 2008, 2010 & 2011, so you could say a December record was looking likely, except that since 2012 Shelduck records have plummeted.
So I went away very happy and excited about 1st January 2016, hope I see lots of you local out there tomorrow. I am sure the Bittern is going to be a right pain to see, I can't do dusk tomorrow, but will be out Saturday and Sunday evening.
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