Monday 2 January 2017

Bosherston Lakes this morning

It was a beautiful sunny morning for a walk around the lakes. Not too many waterfowl - 31 goosanders in the eastern arm probably being the most abundant species (seemed to be more of them today than coot!).

Not so many years ago coot numbers at Bosherton Lakes would have been in treble figures by the turn of the year. We would also have expected to see pochards (small numbers at least). They've become a bit of a rarity these days and not surprisingly none were seen today.

Numbers of goldeneye were also quite low today, our max count was just 7 (two in the eastern arm and 5 in the central arm with 7 tufted ducks). In addition a scaup was feeding with a young male tufted duck on the western arm.


Not many birds were noted around the coast to Stackpole Head but it was nice to see five chough feeding there. The over-wintering black redstart was not seen at the Stackpole Centre when we arrived. Later on though it was very obvious, making feeding forays on various roofs along with a couple of grey and pied wagtails.