Bufflehead ~ Langton Herring ~ 13/3/10

Jim Swalwell, Charlie Dodd’s and I left King’s Lynn at 2am Saturday morning and headed off down the M1 toward the Moonfleet Manor hotel near Langton Herring (Dorset). We arrived at the hotel at c.6.30 and found a further 3 birders that had travelled down from Notts. Within 20 minutes of arriving the adult drake Bufflehead was located off of Herbury Gore. The bird showed really well although a scope would be advised. The bird tended to stick close to a female Red Breasted Merganser. Also on the fleet were half a half dozen Black Swans, 5 Little Egrets, 10 more Red Breasted Merganser and 3 Wigeon.

After having a short rest we headed off to Radipole RSPB to take a look at the apparent plastic male Hooded Merganser like with the Bufflehead it didn’t take long to locate the Hooded Merganser in one of the drains. At first it was distant put luckily a mother and daughter started to feed the ducks which brought the bird a lot lot closer and there for making it easy to get some shots. A Cettis Warbler over the road in Currys car park was interesting and we had a further 3 around Radipole.

Next stops was Burbush hill car park (New Forest) in the hope off locating the wintering Great Grey Shrike but unfortunately after an hour and a half of searching high and low we didn’t locate it however I did see my first Adder of the year (female) and also c.10 Common Buzzards, 3 Sparrowhawks, 2 Kestrels and 2 Bullfinches.

Driving back toward home we counted 7 Red Kites along the A34 and a further 10 or so in-between Northampton and Peterborough.

Thanks,

Robert