With a break in the high winds and low cloud, I scooted across the Humber this morning for a few hours at Tophill Low in sparkling sunshine. Not a mince pie or chocolate brazil in sight. The long-staying Black...
With a break in the high winds and low cloud, I scooted across the Humber this morning for a few hours at Tophill Low in sparkling sunshine.
Not a mince pie or chocolate brazil in sight.
The long-staying Black Throated Thrush was typically elusive for 45 minutes before the sun caught its pale undercrackers deep in the branches of the scrub beside “O” reservoir, and although the bird dropped back into cover quickly, it wasn’t too long until I picked it up flying across the cleared ground and pitching into alders and hawthorn just in front of me.
Nice views as it scoffed berries before a Blackbird chased it off.
The thrush returned to feed in the same area, showing very well, later on. Without going into too much detail it maybe nearly 30 years since I last saw one of these things, during the 1996 influx, but this one was very strongly marked – a smasher!
Worth a break from festive family goings on.
Tophill Low had plenty of other stuff on offer today too – lots of Redwings, Fieldfares, a few Siskins, Kingfisher, etc and the neighbouring Watton Nature Reserve, just a short stroll through the scrub, had a Great White Egret and a fine drake Smew.
The Smew was considerably classier, diving frequently and preening in the bright sun – I don’t get the opportunity to see too many drakes these days.
With the sun starting to fade shortly after 1.30pm, I splashed back across the reserve’s flooded walkways to have a look at the huge expanse of “D” reservoir, where at least four Red-Crested Pochards were amongst the carpet of commoner wildfowl and grebes.
Dunno where they came from – best not to examine the provenance of brightly-coloured wildfowl too closely, especially in the season of peace and goodwill to all.
Time to get back to the mince pies and chocolate brazils.
