Bossy Gladys and a sensory dusk

After a leisurely start to our weekend, we hastily plumped to undertake our postponed trip to Welney. Giving the Admiral very little notice, we picked him up and headed eastwards.

Purely coincidentally, we arrived at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust site on the Ouse Washes, just as the restaurant started serving lunch. So following a warming bowl of leek and potato soup, we headed over the footbridge to the hides.

Flocks of Lapwing, Golden Plover, Wigeon and Starlings made linear patterns across the sky, a Marsh Harrier quartered the reeds at the opposite side of the Washes and I was amazed at the number of Pintail on the water. Our lass is still unable to potter too far or too fast, so the Admiral and I left her in the heated observation room taking photos of Whooper Swans and Pochard ducks, whilst we wandered along the edge of the banks to another hide. Here, we had distant views of Black-tailed Godwit, Redshank, Snipe and Curlew. 

Meeting up again, we all gently ambled in the other direction, and bumped into a chap who informed us that, "The Glossy Ibis is showing well from the Lyle Hide!" We were then rapidly overtaken by another birder, in a state of some excitement, hurrying to said hide.

O-oh, cue inadvertent twitch.

Arriving at the Lyle Hide, it was immediately apparent that, a. it was pretty crowded; b. all optics were pointed in the same direction; and c. "showing well" is a very subjective term. With our limited magnification power, and in less-than-perfect light, we struggled to make out the dark brown bird from the dark brown background that it was stood against. Fortunately, a kindly lady birder, packing the sort of optics of a size and price to make you nervous removing it from its protective packaginging, took pity on us and allowed views through her 'scope. Thank you, kindly lady, for my first Glossy Ibis. Our lass was a bit non-plussed, as she had assumed that "glossy" meant white (she's probably been watching too many home makeover programmes) and thought that "vinyl silk" might've been a better description. The trudge back to the Visitors' Centre was accompanied by much muttering of a disgruntled nature. Lighten up, my love, Bossy Gladys is a life tick!

Fortuitously, the mood was lifted as the mini-twitch and the mid-afternoon swan feeding session meant that the restaurant was suitably empty for a leisurely Tense Towers Team tea and cake break. Galvanised against the elements once more, we returned to the fray to watch and wait as dusk fell. Against a backdrop of glowing clouds, formations of swans, skeins of geese and flocks of ducks flew low over the hide, as the birds returned from feeding in the Norfolk fields to spend the night on the Ouse Washes. The evening air was filled with the bugling calls of the Whoopers, the whistling of countless Wigeon and the flight calls of Lapwing.

We sat, mesmerised by the wonderful sky and soundscape, until with the fading light, the chill of the air turned our thoughts to returning home. As is often the case on these occasions, the final treat was a Barn Owl, this particular one perched on a fence post, as we drove away from Welney.

Good times.

Whoops!

Our lass (and I should belatedly explain that this is North East England dialect for a bloke's significant other) has been under the weather of late and not able to get out much. As the weekend forecast was looking bright though chilly, we wondered about a trip over to Welney to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust site to soak up some migrating swan action. This pretty much ticks every box for her. Not far to amble from Visitors Centre to birds, restaurant on site, heated hide, shop with birdy trinkets.

My head was swimming with the thought of all the brownie points this would rack up, so I was a bit nonplussed when she thought it was too far to drive. Plan B involved a much shorter drive to College Lake, near Tring, and as we hadn't visited there since the new Visitors Centre went in (it's got a tea shop, but you were ahead of me there, weren't you?), it seemed like a good alternative.

Arriving not long after the gates opened for the day, it was still rather quiet in the Centre, so we ambled out to one of the hides for a look at the wildfowl in the recently re-landscaped chalk quarry. It all looked fairly standard, with the usual species of ducks, Mute Swans and Canada Geese. Not a wader in sight. We pottered along to some woodland and were rewarded with a brief view of a Tree Creeper amongst a tit flock, but it was chilly and the tea shop was singing its siren song.

Whilst sampling several slices of rather gorgeous ginger shortbread, we received news that some Bearded Reedlings had been seen at Walton Lake, back in Milton Keynes. We'd only driven passed this site on the way to Tring! Worse still, some Whooper Swans had been spotted at Linford Lakes, not a mile from Tense Towers! What a quandary. Should we keep the faith with College Lake or just return home and pretend that we weren't twitching our own patch? That phrase is just plain wrong, I do apologise.

Hmmm, what do you think we did?

Arriving at Walton Lake, we joined several other hopeful folk wandering around the perimeter path of the main reedbed, listening intently for the characteristic twanging "ping" call. Whilst the Bearded Reedlings may well have been there, they weren't about to show themselves. So we called time on our second site of the day and went to Linford Lakes, only stopping off at Tense Towers to take on reserves of tea.

No, we couldn't see any Bearded Reedlings either.

Safely ensconced in the Near Hide (cracking name, by the way, it isn't as far as the Far Hide), we proceeded to scan all the swans for the telltale signs of Whooper-ness. Now I must tell you that there have been a great many swans on this lake all year, all Mute, and indeed that was all we could see. Figuring that we'd missed these birds too, we continued to scan for other species and managed to spot a few Snipe tucked away in the undergrowth near the water's edge. What we should've done, was to count the swans and then count how many we'd been able to check. This was because not all of every swan was visible at all times, due to various behaviours like feeding or sleeping. After about 20 minutes, I spotted a group of three swans that were dozing in the shallows, one of whom was waking up to reveal a bill coloured with a large amount of yellow. Bingo!

Awful shot, but definitely Whoopers!

They were a very sleepy bunch and only briefly did all three show signs of consciousness together. They were too far away for Wrong Len to capture a meaningful image, but we were just so pleased to see these beauties on our local reserve, presumably resting up after the long haul flight from Iceland. And they saved us a trip to Welney!