Magic Field

There's a ploughed field north of Naburn that is attracting a lot of birds currently, including good numbers of wagtails, Skylarks and Corn Buntings. I am not sure why - it looks like an average ploughed field to me. Anyway, on Saturday afternoon, I cycled down the track to have a look in the strong southerly wind. 

The birds were difficult to watch as they were mainly trying to evade the gale, hiding behind clods of earth and down in the ruts. At least three dapper White Wagtails were zipping about among about ten Pieds, but stars of the show were the dazzling sunshine bright Yellow Wagtails glowing brightly against the soil. After a bit, I picked out the Channel Wagtail, found earlier by Jane and Rob. It's pale blue head, broad white super and sub-ocular, and extensive white throat indicated mixed parentage. It was neverthless an attractive bird.

White Wagtail, with a female Pied at the top.

Male Channel Wagtail, likely flava x flavissima

Male British Yellow Wagtail

Juxtaposition...a tale of two Grebes

It is April, a magical month for the birder. I try and get out birding as often as possible, as with migration in full swing, every day brings fresh arrivals, tiny miracles returning thousands of miles from the tropical heat of Africa to spend the summer with us. Our winter migrants are on the move too, heading back north and east to breed and large numbers pass through our area on their travels. Throw in the chance of literally anything turning up anywhere, and it is a very exciting month!

After work on Thursday I headed out to the LDV to see what was occurring. With the valley flooding again for the umpteenth time this winter/spring, Wheldrake was inaccessible, so I headed to the south end to start my birding at North Duffield. The pair of Scaup and pair of hybrid Scaup-alikes were still present, but the large expanse of water hadn't pulled in the hoped-for terns or Little Gulls. Next, round to the east side of the valley, to check sites on the way up north. My first stop was positive, with a female Common Scoter a fresh arrival, looking rather out of place amid the scores of Wigeon and Pintail. No sign of any Garganey yet though. Swallows zipped overhead and Willow Warblers had joined the Chiffchaffs in the scrub around the church. A late Fieldfare chacked over, heading east. This juxtaposition of incoming summer migrants with outgoing winter migrants is what makes April so special.

Ellerton was teeming with ducks, but nothing scarce, so I headed on up to East Cottingwith, where I could look across the Pocklington Canal on to the refuge at the south end of Wheldrake. Almost the first bird I saw was a Black-necked Grebe - class! 

 

These birds used to breed in the valley, but have become really scarce in recent years and never hang around long, so this was a delightful treat. After a few moments, I thought I better get the news out, and as I opened Whatsapp I saw a message from Ollie Metcalfe saying he had just found a Slavonian Grebe at Bank Island! Nuts - he must have found this at exactly the same time as I'd found the Black-necked, at the other end of Wheldrake. Slavonian Grebes are next-level in terms of rarity in the York area, so my BNG was somewhat eclipsed. 

 

Having taking a few rushed pics and video of the grebe and a smart breeding-plumaged Great Egret, I picked up my sister in Sutton and then shot round to Bank Island.  We discovered a grinning Ollie and Craig watching the stonking summer-plumaged Slav feeding out on the flood. What a fantastic grebe double, something not witnessed before in the York area, and continuing our great start to the York birding year. 

The following morning, another bizarre twist in this tale. The early morning news was that the Slav had departed, but the Black-necked Grebe was now on Bank Island! Then, an hour or so later, the almost unbelievable news that the Slav was now on the refuge, exactly where I'd found the Black-necked the previous evening. So, the two grebes had effectively switched position during the night! Totally nuts. 

 Following this strange episode, the Slav had disappeared from the refuge by Saturday morning, only for me to refind it on the main flood out from Tower Hide later that morning. Whilst watching the bird there, an adult Kittiwake dropped in right in front of it - another scarce York bird and proving April really is a phenomenal birding month!

Incoming!

Yesterday was my last Yorkshire Coast Nature Goshawk Tour of spring 2024. I am relieved that it was a successful day, with seven Goshawks seen, bringing my hit rate to 100 percent. The Gos have performed brilliantly this year, and it is great to see them thriving in the Yorkshire Forest. Long may it continue! We  have watched as pairs defended their territories against last year's young, neighbouring pairs and other rivals, including the local Buzzards. The sight of a slow-flapping female Gos, with her white undertail puffed out, and her long, graduated tail held tightly shut, over the remote forest, is an amazing thing, and I hope these sightings will live long in the memories of all our fabulous clients. Roll on next year!

I am delighted that YCN will be making a donation to the RSPB Investigations team, who do a fantastic job looking after these and other raptors.

Besides the Goshawks, there was a lot of other bird activity in the forest. An early Tree Pipit was a highlight, displaying maniacally: repeatedly climbing up into the sky before parachuting into the top of a tree; a Raven, which gave us a cracking fly-past, and a couple of Swallows back round their home farm. The spring flowers - Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage, Wood Anemones, Wood Sorrel and Primroses - lit up the woodland floor, and a bit of warm spring sunshine felt good on our faces after such a long wet winter. 

......

Today, I headed off to North Duffield Carrs to see if the strong southerly wind had blown anything in. It  was clear that more migrants had come in with the warm weather and wind, with several Swallows and a good numbers of Sand Martins. A Ringed Plover flew south, and there were five Ruff, a Dunlin and a Black-tailed Godwith sheltering from the brisk wind. The male and female Scaup were still hanging out with the flotilla of Tufties and Pochard, and the two drake hybrids were still at large, one of which still shadows the drake Scaup.

 

At 10.30 a flight of 40 Wigeon came in from the east; I joked to Jilly who was in the hide that we should check carefully in case the American Wigeon was with them. To my surprise and delight, it was, and it proceeded to swim towards Garganey Hide, where it showed beautifully in the morning sun although most of the time it was asleep, as per usual! The bird had been at Wheldrake until the end of last week and then had disappeared. I assumed it had departed for northern climes, but it seemed it had just returned to its original patch now that the Derwent has flooded yet again. A very smart bird and great to admire it at much closer quarters. After a couple of hours, I left it to its slumber and headed home.

 The drake American Wigeon with his partner

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Later on, a dog walk up the York-Selby cycle track revealed four dazzling Yellow Wagtails feeding with a similar number of Pied Wags in a freshly ploughed field near the Moor Lane bridge at Naburn. Cracking!

Long View

With the day off, I left the kids to entertain themselves and headed off to Wheldrake Ings. A Cetti's Warbler was singing from the marshy area next to the car park, and another was by the first bend in the riverside path. It seems they are returning to the ings after the winter floods. The Willow Warbler was still proclaiming its territory near Tower Hide and a second bird was in riverside trees just south of the refuge gate. The American Wigeon was showing well, staying close to a female Euro Wigeon on Swantail. The light was still dreary, so my pic are not much better than the other day.

The Blackwits were spread across the site, with the bulk of the flock at the back of the refuge, but about 100 on Swantail and a few flocks around the edges of the refuge, feeding. 

 

I moved on to North Duffield and within a few minutes, picked up a couple of elegant Avocets, feeding way out at the back of the flood. These are my first Avocets in the York area for about five years, so I was more than a little pleased to find them. Avocets are remarkably scarce in the York area despite the increasing population in Yorkshire. They also seem to move on quickly, and true to form, these two departed at some point in the afternoon, disappointing some post-work twitchers. The drake Scaup and its hybrid buddy were still present with the large flock of Tufties, 45 Pinkfeet were flying about and the immature drake Goosander dropped in to bathe and preen, before heading off north up the valley. With southerly winds and warm weather approaching, perhaps more migrants will arrive by the weekend. Fingers crossed!

The Avocets were about a kilometre north of the hide on the back edge of the flood, underneath the old Osprey platform.

Zeiss Victory SF 10x42 - initial thoughts

If you read the tale of my binocular disaster, you may be interested to hear that a silver lining to that dark cloud rapidly came into focus. Our insurance paid out (thanks Axa) and with a bit of extra cash, I secured myself a pair of the new Zeiss Victory SFs, from Viking Optical. 

I was very happy with my Zeiss FLs, so I was keen to get my hands on the new SFs, having heard good things about them. Viking Optical provided excellent service, and, with next-day delivery, I was out birding with the SFs less than a week after obliterating my FLs! Not bad at all. 

So, what is my early opinion? Well, optically they are excellent: crisp, bright and with gorgeous colour rendition, resulting in a smile on my face each time I see a bird through them; I am a very happy birder! The general build quality is fantastic, as you would expect from Zeiss, with excellent, smooth focussing, a solid diopter arrangement and a straightforward strap attachment situation, unlike the fiddly wierdness of Swarovski. They arrived with a rather futuristic case, which I probably won't use - I'm not cool enough. They do fit into the old case from my FLs, so I will use that for now. I also rescued my old rainguard from my FLs, as although the SFs are supplied with one, I prefer the one-piece type, as I find they flick on and off more easily. The bins also came with objective lens covers, but they never left the box.

When I got them out of the box, the SFs seem really quite big, with long barrels. However, the open design, similar to the Swaro ELs reduces the weight considerably and the attention to balance means that they do not feel cumbersome or heavy whilst in use. My old FLs weighed in at 765g and my new SFs are 790g, an increase of only 3% or so, so barely noticeable. For those who don't like bins at the heavier end, consider getting a harness-type strap, or go for the 10 x 32s (590g) or perhaps the 10 x 40 SFLs which are 640g. The open bridge design looks a bit odd at first - I was never a massive fan of the appearance of the ELs - but they are actually very comfortable to use. I can hold the SFs with one hand, three fingers round the barrel and my index finger on the focus wheel, in a much more secure way than I could hold my FLs. As I spend a fair bit of time guiding on boats, this will be a real advantage, especially when the swell gets up! The focus is super smooth, with moderate resistance, giving it a lovely action and allowing precision use.

In terms of optics, I have not looked through a more fantastic pair of bins! The initial impression has a clear wow-factor and is an unexpected step up from my trusty FLs. The brightness, incredible field of view and sharpness of focus is just awesome. The depth of field seems impressive, so it is easy to focus the bins with very little rotation of the focussing wheel. This is really helpful when locking on to flying birds, or skulking birds deep in cover, where every split second counts, allowing me to focus in and identify the bird before it disappears. I spent ages just watching freshy arrived Sand Martins scudding around over Castle Howard lake the other day; it was such a joy to get such good views of them through the SFs and stay locked-in focus the whole time without any effort.

I haven't yet used the SFs in low-light, so I can't comment on their performance in those conditions, but the impression I get from how well they perform in murky, overcast weather, is that they will be fantastic. 

Another feature of these bins is the exceptional close focus. I can pretty much focus on my toes, which will give me a great ability to check out plants, insects and other nearby wildlife without having to step away. I chose my FLs partly for their close-focus ability, which seemed better than the equivalent Leica and Swarovski, and the SFs are even better, which is really pleasing. I am sure the 8s are even better! 

And now for the negatives...

One downside of these SFs, which has been reported by birding mates and also online, are the flimsy eyecups. As seems standard, the eyecups twist up or down and click into a number of positions, to give the birder their preferred eye-relief. I like to have mine at the first click up from the bottom. Within two uses, they barely register the clicks to allow them to be partially dropped and everytime I take the rainguard off, they move. Very frustrating! It is very peculiar that Zeiss have cocked-up their top level bins in this way. Everything else is excellent, but the eyecups are like something off a pair of budget-end bins -or worse! I had been warned about this, but was - perhaps too optimistically - hoping that Zeiss had sorted this out and new pairs were being supplied with improved eyecups. Apparently not!

With a bit of Googling, I found a message on Zeiss's website recognising the problem with the SF eyecups and after an email exchange, I am being sent a replacement pair of apparently more robust eyecups, from their UK repair contractor, the very helpful East Coast Binoculars. I will update how that goes once I receive and replace them - hopefully in the near future!

So, apart from the eyecup situation, I am very happy with my new bins and I suspect these will last me a very long time (providing I don't leave them on my car roof!.

...

(By the way, I am entirely independent of Zeiss, so this is my genuine opinion. I have a Swaro scope, Manfrotto tripod and previously had Zeiss FL bins, so I am not solely limited to Zeiss. Of course if any of these companies want to give me free gear to trial and review, just drop me a line!).

 

Hard Slog

With some promise in the forecast (northeasterly with showers), a visit to Castle Howard, followed by a loop of the LDV was in order. It still felt very wintery and apart from 40 Sand Martins over CHL, lots of Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps, there were no new summer migrants, until I got to Wheldrake where a singing Willow Warbler shivered in the late morning breeze. It has been very wet and cool in the Med recently and I suspect following the last pulse of migrants, everything has been blocked. With skies clearing in the Med this coming week and the wind going southerly, I suspect we will get more birds arriving. The heavy rain has been pretty catastrophic in southern Europe, downing loads of Alpine Swifts, which are struggling in the prolonged poor weather. With an increasingly unstable climate, perhaps this is going to be the norm?

Castle Howard was rather bereft of birds, with many of the ducks having departed. A Cetti's Warbler was singing in the usual area and a few Marsh Tits bounced about in the hedgerow to the north of the lake. A couple of Goldeneye were still present but it seemed that the Smew had gone.

Into the valley and there were lots of ducks around still, plus two Whooper Swans at North Duff. Despite the chilly weather, Curlews, Redshanks, Lapwings and Skylarks were busy displaying over the rapidly-drying ings - a fantastic sound. 

The drake American Wigeon was refound mid-morning, at Wheldrake Ings, by Stuart Rapson, and as that was my final destination, I had chance to have a closer look at this handsome bird, casually swimming about on Swantail. The cloud of Blackwits was still present too, appearing like a smudge of rust on the main meadow, which is rapidly 'greening up' now that the flooding has abated. A first-winter White-fronted Goose had recently appeared and is hanging out with the local Greylags. Today, it was on the grass in front of Thicket Priory. 

Drake American Wigeon, top two; White-fronted Goose, bottom.
 

So, not a bad morning, but as often happens in early April, a little bit frustrating!

Icelandic Travellers

With the nights drawing out, it was my first chance for a quick post-work dash to Wheldrake this evening. 32 Whooper Swans were resting on the ings at Wheldrake, just outside Tower Hide - a fine sight. About 6.30pm they got pretty excited, necks erect and calling constantly; a fantastic sound. A family party headed off, but realising the rest hadn't joined them, they circled back round and joined the flock; well, almost. One of the youngsters didn't notice and headed off south towards the refuge and out of sight. Strange! Ten minutes later, it still hadn't returned and the herd decided it was time to go and they headed off into the dusk to the north. 

The impressive flock of Black-tailed Godwits had been feeding in the shallows; I had counted over 500 when they were flushed - there was clearly a lot more - probably well over 800, as was counted the other day- a new record for the LDV. I checked the wings as best as I could, looking for the black underwings of a Hudsonian - maybe a little optimistic - or the plain upperwings of a Bar-tailed - maybe more likely. I found neither, but the spectacle was amazing to watch. 

A horde of Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits, swirling over their Whooper Swan neighbours. 

I headed down to Swantail with Duncan, and shortly after arrival the lost young Whooper Swan flew back towards the main flood, clearly a little distressed at losing its family. I felt for the young bird, as its family were now long-gone to the north. I hoped that another herd would come through and it could join up with them and a little later, to our relief, that happened and 52 birds came north low over the ings collecting the lost youngster. I have always wondered how sociable birds get split up from the flock and then become vagrants - perhaps this event demonstrates how this can happen so easily. 

This young Whooper was lucky. I guess some birds get split up and then latch on to the next nearest species, leading them to end up travelling with them, perhaps out of the usual range. 

Migrating Whooper Swans; one of the finest spring wildlife spectacles

Having checked through the hordes of ducks for a Garganey - to no avail - we headed home, enjoying five Sand Martins hawking over the reedbed and at least three Water Rails causing a commotion in the ditches next to the boardwalk.

....

I arrived home to the good news that the insurance company are going to pay out for my smashed binoculars - what a relief! Now the big decision about what to get....

End of an Era/Car-roof Binocular Disaster!

A couple of visits to the LDV over the weekend yielded my first Sand Martin of the year, a single bird flying over the ings at Wheldrake. An impressive herd of 190 Iceland-bound Whooper Swans were at Wheldrake Ings yesterday, having a rest before continuing northwest. The flock of Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits has grown to a collosal and record-breaking 865; the site has clearly become a very important stop-over for them. 

My biggest news, however, was the disaster that befell my trusty Zeiss FL binoculars. These were the first 'top of the range' bins I had managed to afford, once I started earning, back in 2004, and they have been used pretty much daily ever since. They've had a few bumps and bruises along the way, and have the eyepieces replaced at least twice thanks to the Zeiss maintenance crew at Birdfair, but have been round my neck or glued to my eyes for many of my most memorable wildlife encounters over the last two decades.

So, on Sunday, when the unexpectedly warm spring sunshine at Thorganby caused me to put my bins on top of the car while I took my coat off, I wasn't expecting to end an era of Ziess-powered birding. 

I arrived at Wheldrake a few minutes later, and after donning my scope, I headed over the bridge and paused to scan the Low Grounds. Wait! No bins. I dashed back to the car assuming I'd left them on the passenger seat - apparently not. I then remembered what I had done. I assumed they would have dropped off in the car park back at Thorganby, and I began to panic thinking that somebody may have found them and I would never see them again. I sped back there and leapt out of my car. They were nowhere to be seen. A voice from the orchard 'are you looking for your binoculars?' My heart leapt - 'have you found them?' I enquired desperately, to which the dismaying answer came: 'no, we saw you driving through the village with them on the roof of your car five minutes ago'. My heart sank.

Back I went to Wheldrake, scouring the sides of the road. After a surprising distance - given how the road twists and turns through Thorganby - I spotted a crumpled shiny black heap in the gutter. It was my bins, and they were totally smashed. I was absolutely gutted, this really was the end of an era; my most prized possession obliterated by a momentary lapse of concentration. I was so upset, that despite having my scope with me, which would have been fine for some birding at Wheldrake, I went home. 

 My beloved FLs...RIP. 

....

Post-script

Having shared this image of disaster on Twitter/X, I got a lot of lovely comments and shared stories of similar bins-related mishaps. This made me feel a bit better; at least I am not the only accident-prone birder around. In the meantime, I have borrowed my wife's bins, which are not bad at all. I am now hoping I will get a call from Zeiss, offering me a free replacement pair, although I suspect that call will never come!

York Merg

 

Tim Jones found this handsome male Red-breasted Merganser at North Duffield Carrs yesterday, and it fortunately stayed long enough for me to shoot down at lunchtime to see it. After a short but anxious drive, I arrived to find Chris Gomersall watching it from Geoff Smith Hide - phew! The bird was asleep, with punk crest askew most of the time, indicating it had flown a fair way the previous night. A couple of times he awoke and gave a bit of display to rather non-plussed Teal and Tufted Ducks - although I was quite impressed. The bird stayed all afternoon and was seen to depart high to the north late afternoon. 

Mergs have been really rare in the York area in the last decade with no twitchable birds, so this one was very welcome and was a York tick for all those who saw it. Well done Tim!

Also present were two possibly three drake and one female Scaup, the Lesser Scaup-like Aythya hybrid and a new hybrid, possibly Ferruginous Duck x Pochard. A couple of Chiffchaffs were singing and the local Redshanks were displaying, giving a very spring-like feel to the site.

Oh! For a better camera lens...

I have led three Goshawk Tours for Yorkshire Coast Nature in the last week, and the birds have been spectacular. After another wet week, yesterday dawned bright and clear - and a little bit chilly. I had high hopes, and sure enough, within ten minutes we picked up an adult male Goshawk, circling over the forest, his white underparts gleaming in the sunshine. He drifted down the valley, being replaced by his mate who was having some trouble with four second calendar-year birds. The sparring didn't seem too serious, almost playful, with some brief aerial skirmishes high above the valley. The male returned and so for a while we had six Goshawks together - pretty awesome! One young male stooped at a Woodpigeon, missing by a fraction, though it almost looked like he had the speed and accuracy to take it, but didn't bother. Very cool to see, nevertheless. We headed up the valley and the adult pair returned from the melee and showed very well, circling with a bit of relaxed display right in front of us, and at times, overhead. Of for a better camera lens! My wife's 200mm just wasn't powerful enough, otherwise I would have got some good pics. Views through the scope were fantastic! After lunch, we headed to a different part of the forest where we had a further three Gos, plus an unseen calling bird, deep in the forest. A sublime day ended with frustration, when my car wouldn't start. I sat in a cold car for 2 1/2 hours waiting for the AA to sort me out, which thankfully they did. I did see two roding Woodcock at dusk while I was waiting and a rather furtive Sparrowhawk on the hunt, which relieved my frustration.

Top two: Adult male Goshawk; third pic, immature male Gos; bottom, the adult pair together -male at the top.

York's first Lesser Scaup? Not quite...

For the second time this winter, some of the local birders had expressed interest in a duck in the LDV that was showing characters of Lesser Scaup.This would be a first for the York area and after several years of increasing rarity in the UK, this winter had seen a reverse in fortunes, with a real influx, so if we were going to get one, surely this would be the year. With deep flooding since November, the valley has supported good numbers of diving ducks, including several Greater Scaup, so if any Lesser Scaup was passing, there would be a good chance of it dropping in. 

The first bird to get local birder's pulses racing was a female type, but photos showed that to be a Tufted Duck with extensive white feathering around the bill base. Female Tufties can show this frequently, but this bird was at the extreme end, but the shape of the patch was not right for LS, nor was the colouration of the mantle and flanks. Whilst some claimed it had some Scaup parentage, I couldn't see that myself; it just looked like a Tuftie to me, with standard upperparts and flanks, head shape and size.

Fast-forward to the last week or so, the valley was deeply flooded yet again and distant views of a drake Scaup-type on Wheldrake Ings had generated a lot of interest. Towards the end of last week the water had dropped enough for birders to get to Tower Hide and some rather record shots showed a bird with some really pro-Lesser Scaup features: the head shape had the classic peak to the rear-crown, it looked fairly small and the back a little darker than a nearby drake Greater Scaup. This looked good! Comments from birders on site were very positive but unfortunately, the bird was feeding on Swantail Ings, rather distant from Tower Hide so hadn't been nailed. If only we could access Swantail Hide! 

The watery view from Tower Hide.
 

I was keen to get down there and have a look for myself, and managed to do so on a rather wet Friday afternoon. Unsurprisingly, nobody else was present and wading through the floodwater in pouring rain made me start to doubt my own sanity. However, the chance to clinch a first for York was plenty of motivation to battle down to Tower. I soon found the Scaups feeding actively with the other diving ducks. The light was bad, it was raining and the ducks were diving frequently. 

This wasn't going to be easy - or even possible! The 'Lesser' stood out from its larger cousin and I could see why it had caused some excitement. The headshape looked spot on, as it had in photos I'd seen, with a nice peak at the rear and a steep forehead. The bill was parallel-sided and blue, perhaps paling towards the tip. It was difficult to discern the extent of any black on the tip at first. The upperparts appeared mid-grey and uniform, clearly darker than the Greater Scaup nearby, but I couldn't tell if this colouration was due to thick vermiculations (lines), as you'd expect in Lesser Scaup, or just a mid-grey base colour, more typical of a hybrid. 

'Lesser' Scaup on right hand side, with the drake Greater Scaup in the middle and the third bird on the left (I will mention that in a minute).

 

After a while, the two decided to have a preen and clambered on to some floating vegetation. The 'Lesser' looked smaller than the Greater but I wasn't convinced it was really small enough. I'd noticed that when they were diving, it was sometimes difficult to tell which bird I was looking at - the size difference wasn't really what I would have expected. This rang an alarm bell with me and sowed the first seed of doubt in my mind. Secondly, that grey back looked very smooth and didn't really seem to have the same base colour as the back of the Greater...

Drake Greater Scaup (left) and 'Lesser', facing away. You can clearly see the difference in back colour, despite the terrible light.

 

After a heavy downpour, the sun came out briefly. The Scaups immediately started bathing and splashing around. I stared hard to see if the bird would do a wingflap and reveal its two tone wingbars (Lesser should have a grey wingbar across the black primaries, and a white bar across the secondaries. Greater Scaup and hybrids tend to have white wingbars throughout. Sure enough, the 'Lesser' did three wingflaps but managed to be facing towards me every time! Typical. 

With better light, I noticed to my dismay that there seemed to be black on the tip of the bill. A pure drake Lesser Scaup should have a tiny amount of black on the nail of the bill. This bird seemed to show black on the nail and bleeding on to the sides of the tip. This feature alone ruled out Lesser Scaup, indicating mixed parentage, and made squinting through my scope at the other features rather academic. So, close but no cigar and Lesser Scaup still evades the York list.

A little while later, I came across a third Scaup-type, which until that moment I hadn't noticed. The Lesser type seemed to stick closely to the Greater Scaup, whereas this bird seemed happy hanging out with the Tufties.  This third bird also looked a little like a Lesser Scaup though not as convincingly. I then got myself very confused and realised perhaps I had been watching the original hybrid and it had just moved along the flock. Wierd. Either way, this bird wasn't a Lesser Scaup either. 

I put out the rather disappointing news, although caveating it to say if the bird was seen much closer and the features were in fact spot-on, then I would be surprised, but pleased to be proved wrong. 

...

3rd March.

I found myself at Wheldrake again in rather better light this afternoon. Bumping into Duncan, we walked down the riverside path, which was disgustingly muddy and flooded, to the viewing screen. The three Scaup were still on Swantail Ings, but marginally closer. I was able to confirm my suspicions that the bird was in fact a hybrid and the third bird seemed also to be a hybrid although a little less Lesser Scaup like. It was still a little smaller than the Greater Scaup, had the same dark back but the headshape was between Lesser and Greater, with an insignificant rear peak. Perhaps these two hybrids were siblings? So it seems we have one Greater Scaup and two Aythya hybrids, presumably both Pochard x Tufted Duck. It is massively frustrating that this has been the result, but hopefully the genuine article will turn up this spring as birds begin to move north. A pair of Lesser Scaups turned up in Lancashire yesterday and it was interesting to see all the salient features on these, compared to the two birds we have analysed in the LDV this winter. The distances we have had to deal with have been really challenging, so hopefully when a real Lesser turns up, it will be on the pool so we can get a better look!

L to R: Greater Scaup, second hybrid, original hybrid (facing away) and two Tufted Ducks. The second hybrid is clearly smaller than the Greater, but bigger than the Tufties.

Among the Tufties, the original hybrid is at the front on the left, with the Greater two ducks to the right. The secodnd hybrid is to the rear facing left.

L to R: Greater Scaup and original hybrid. The second hybrid is behind the Greater and mostly obscured.   

Original hybrid with the Greater Scaup. Note how the hybrid is not that much smaller, it's back is quite a flat mid-grey, and doesn't really have the same base colour as the Greater; no coarse vermiculations can be seen, which should be visible from this range. In the upper photo, you get a suggestion of the black on the bill tip, though it is not easy to see in the pic. 

It is possible that the first hybrid is the bird seen previously at Slaynes Lane in South Yorkshire. This was also considered to be a Lesser Scaup until closer views confirmed it was a hybrid. So it is not just us York birders who get frustrated by these Aythyas! The very first Lesser Scaup I twitched in the UK was at Gouthwaite Reservoir in the late 1980s, not long after the first UK record. By the time my Dad and me had arrived, birders had identified that bird as a hybrid. So, this pitfall is always on my mind with this species. I have seen about a dozen in the UK over the years, but only one in Yorkshire, so it would be great to get one here in York. One day soon, hopefully!

...

I stayed on to do the gull roost and it was interesting to see how many of the Black-headed Gulls had acquired their hoods now. A partially leucistic snowy-white BHG came in to roost, the first I've seen this winter. A first-winter Lesser Black-backed Gull came in too, but very few large gulls at all.

 

 

 

Challenging Yank

With a bit of time to spare, I headed down to Bubwith where good numbers of birds are present due to the floodwater being a bit shallower than elsewhere in the valley. There were stacks of ducks and waders on North Duffield south ings, but the light wasn't great and a strong cold wind was blowing straight in my face. I switched my attention to the river as the male American Wigeon had been showing here on and off all week. Unfortunately, despite over a hundred Euro Wigeons milling about in the sunshine, the Yank wasn't with them. I decided to trawl through the big flock on the flooded ings, which after several chilly minutes paid dividends, when the gleaming white crown of the American Wigeon caught my attention. It was facing away and asleep, but the creamy-white head was eye-catching. After a bit, it turned side-on, which made things a bit easier and after a challenging few minutes, I managed to get another two birders on to him. 

My first view. A bit of a challenge. Can you see it?

Easier with a yellow ring round it!

Other birds of note included 222 Pochard, between here, Bubwith and Aughton Ings, several Ruff, a couple of Redshank and a few Whooper Swans.