Mystery Bird Walk to Titchfield 12th Feb

The weather was cloudy with some sun. Highlights were Scaup, Cackilng Canada Goose, Barnacle Goose and Snipe.

The best place for birds this morning seemed to be Titchfield Haven. There have been 2 Scaup, Marsh Harrier, Bittern here and Divers and Grebes on the sea. How would we fare?
Before we had all arrived a Peregrine flew by after a small flock of birds. We met at the centre and scanned through the Tufted Ducks and Pochard on the lake outside. There were a few Little Grebe and Moorhen and Coot and then we found one of the male Scaup. It was great to see him. We then scanned the sea, but there were only Black-headed Gulls and a Cormorant or two on it, so we headed to the hides on the east side. A brief stop at some feeder yielded just a few Great Tit, Blue Tit and Chaffinch and we heard Greenfinch and Great Tit singing as we got to the hides. From the first hide we saw a few Shelduck and many Cormorant on the pool and a Canada Goose with 3 Barnacle Geese and a Cackling Canada Goose. This is a smaller race of Canada Goose from the western side of the Northern USA. The next hide gave us a better view of the pool and we saw a few Coot and Wigeon on it. We also got better views of the Geese and many more Canada Geese flew in to the pool. Back to the sea and we noticed some Common Gull with Black-headed Gulls sitting on posts in the lake. The first hide on the west side had more ducks and some waders. We saw a few Redshank, lots of Oystercatcher on an island, many Lapwing, Gadwall, Shoveler, Teal, Mallard and Wigeon. There was also an escaped Fulvous Whistling Duck with some of the Mallards. The second hide on this side had much the same, but we also saw a couple of Snipe.
Simon Curson.