It's a cold one
With the mercury dipping below freezing overnight it wasn't a surprise to find many of the shallow water bodies at least partly frozen this morning. This pushes the duck into tight groups or to other deeper water, and can push waders off the reserve to the river, further south or leave them huddled on the ice to tough it out.
Rushy Hide
The Bewick's Swan count for this morning's feed was 52 birds, less than yesterday's 58 so some birds may have moved off to feed in the fields early. Several hundred duck were on the upper pond including 114 Shelduck. An increase in the number of Wigeon and Teal on both ponds as a result of a partly frozen Tack Piece.
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Zeiss Hide
The Bittern was clambering through the reeds this morning before taking flight and heading over the South Finger Walkway and dropping into the South Finger Reedbed. Waders on the scrape included 883 Lapwing, 432 Dunlin, 3 Ruff and 164 Golden Plover dropped in shortly after 9am. At least 24 Snipe were on island to north end.
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South Lake Hides
The wader scrape was mostly frozen with 637 Lapwing, 21 Dunlin and 13 Black-tailed Godwit. Duck on deep lake included 48 Teal, 52 Shoveler and 17 Pochard shortly after the feed on the Rushy. Numbers will increase during the morning as birds move back here, before leaving again around 3pm to head back to the Rushy for the afternoon feed. Also on the deep lake were a Great Crested Grebe and a Little Grebe.
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Holden Walkway
A Jack Snipe was showing well again from the Martin Smith Hide and a Water Rail was back under the feeders at the Willow Hide.
