Today I was going further afield for the day, out to a place I hadn’t been for a number of years, I was also going with a birding buddy. We set off at about 7:30, as Tophill doesn’t open till 9am, it was going to ber a two hour journey, for us.
We arrived at 9:30am, bang on the two hour mark. The first port of call was the reception hide, where you have to obtain a permit to get onto the reserve, cost at moment is £3.50 for the day, plus car parking.
After all the formalities we concentrated on our target birds for the day, or Ducks as the case was. Our main target was luckily on ‘D’ reservoir, where the reception hide is, so we set about looking, thru all the wildfowl about, there were a lot. The first call was on a Black necked Grebe, not one of the target birds but nice to see, there were also Shovelers, Mallards, Gadwall, Coot, Great Crested Grebe, Teal, Pochard, Wigeon, Goldeneye to go thru. I thought this was going to be an endless task, other birders hadn’t seen the birds today, it was still early thou. Then it started, my buddy called on two birds blogging at the back of the reservoir, we all got on the birds and started checking, however the heads were tucked in, on both birds, Teal size, no white strip, then one lifted its head, we could see the pale spot at the base of the bill, we were sure we were on to a winner, the other bird did eventually show its head, we had found our two Blue winged Teals, lifer in the bag, we did return later in the day, and got the blue wing patch.
Good start, we moved next door for a snack and to watch the feeders for the reported Brambling, but we did get good views of Great Spotted Woodpecker ♂, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, but no Brambling. Our next was on ‘O’ reservoir, so off we went. On arrival two people said they hadn’t seen the bird, so once again we set about looking thru all the birds on the reservoir, lots of duck again, our target bird is similar to Tufted Duck, so we started with those. Birds again were Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Shovelers, Pochards, Tufted Duck, we couldn’t see it, but once again just when your going to throw the towel in, bingo, it pops into view, where was it hiding, this was a splendid male Ringed necked Duck, great to find and see, a great looking duck, very similar to Tufted , this being an American species, alas we didn’t find the reported Scaup, cant win them all.
We decided to try and find some of the reported waders that were about today, we ended up in the South Marsh Hide, which is located at the back of the ‘O’ reservoir. Here we saw Redshank, Teal, Common Snipe, Mallards.
A great day with a few year birds to boot and a lifer with the Blue winged Teals, I’m hoping these birds will winter here, be good to see the male in hie splendor of summer plumage. I enjoyed todays venture out looking thru so many ducks, tests the ID skills. I enjoyed Tophill Low, great reserve, very friendly helpful people on site, looking forward to the next visit.
Bird List : Blackbird, Black headed Gull, Black necked Grebe, Blue Tit, Blue winged Teal, Buzzard, Crow, Cetti’s Warbler, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Common Gull, Coot, Cormorant, Dunnock, Gadwall, Goldcrest, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Great Crested Grebe, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Herring Gull, Jay, Kingfisher, Lesser Black backed Gull, Little Grebe, Long tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Pheasant, Pochard, Redshank, Ring necked Duck, Robin, Rock Dove/Feral Pigeon, Rook, Shoveler, Snipe, Teal, Tufted Duck, Water Rail, Wigeon, Woodpigeon, Wren (47)
Short video, Common Snipe and Kingfisher PRESS
Huddsbirder 