Blashford Lakes - 13th Jan

With plenty of new additions to the year list in the bag we headed back through the New Forest to finish the afternoon off at Blashford Lakes, Hants Bird News had been logging 2 Bittern for the past fortnight or so, so the odds of seeing 1 had to be good right?

I wasn't really expecting to pick up an new ticks but the shear number of wildfowl out on Ibsley water was something to behold. c.900 Shoveler, c.300 Greylag Geese which happened to erupt from the water and fly straight towards the Hide windows. 

Cormorant, Tufted Duck and a few Pintail were dotted in between the Shovelers, I also managed to pick out a couple of distant Goosanders, trying to get a count when 2 drakes flew straight past the hide. I did get another tick after all!

2 Out of focus Greylags, ruining or making the picture?

Greylag flyby

Leaving Ibsley Water behind we headed across the road to try for the illusive Bittern in the Ivy North hide. The words you most definitely don't want to hear when entering a hide are "your 2 minutes too late, its just walked right across that open channel and into the reeds". 45 minutes later, and we are still watching a small area of reed bed, about 10ft across.

Too say I was a little pissed off would be an understatement, the brief visit of a Kingfisher outside of the hide window did nothing to lighten my mood, which got progressively worse as I headed home Dad had great pleasure informing me that he had just flushed a Bittern from one of the small areas of reed alongside the River. What a patch tick that would have been!

Overall I guess it couldn't really put to much of a dampener on what was a cracking day for species and weather! 56 logged throughout the day.

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