WATERFOWL

7/11/09
an amazing second part to the day when i witnessed a magical flock of 300+ golden plover flying west over the m42 at junction 3(at earlswood).this is the biggest flock i have ever seen and was a nice earlswood tick. bar the plovers there was no other highlights at earlswood.
upton warren
i knew of a goldeneye and a bittern at upton moors again so thats where we headed,and again the west hide(just the better hide towards sundown/dusk).i asked wheather the goldeneye had been seen and the birders replyed no despite looking for them.i scanned the islands and found my secomd upton barnicle goose,sweet.

then i scanned the ducks at the far end of the lake with my scope,well it was easy,

shoveler,shoveler,shoveler,teal,shoveler,pochard,shoveler,female shoveler,but wait......

thats an odd female shoveler,so scoped the duck,well its bigger than the shoveler,and has got a noticable long bulge at the breast while it sat on the water,then it woke up briefly,showing it long,2 toned, beak, PINTAIL

as this hadent been reported that day(i know),or the day before(i think) i shouted it out,the other birders got onto it after a few directions and agreed it was a female pintail. could you class this as a self found bird?

then the other birder had the goldeneye,it was behind the half sunken raft,just behind the pintail,the bird had dived but why was i worried,it was the only duck in that area of the lake and i had the pintail and the goldeneye(upton tick 129) in a scopeview,now i had found the goldeneye i went into relax mode and started couting the shovelers,after about a min or 2 i came with the count of 79+(the + is because i know there would be more birds in amys marsh).
there was 24 curlew in the field behind the hide and 1 greylag geese flew towards the flashes after being with the canadas.
highlights are:
17 greylag
1 BARNICLE GOOSE
1 PINTAIL
79+ shoveler
1 GOLDENEYE(juv male)
5!! water rail
24 curlew
2 cetti's
MB