The day started with a 6am pick up at the Prince of Wales and when Jono turned up he advised that sadly Graeme was unwell so would not be coming with us.
The journey was uneventful other than Dave going on about how hungry he was and that chips seemed to feature in any sentence he uttered!
First stop Abberton Reservoir which is enormous and undergoing some major works at the moment.
It was just about light when we arrived at the first causeway and although the sun was starting to get up, there was a howling cold wind making scope work very difficult.
We saw a fair selection of the usual ducks plus Goosander but always on the fly past. There were a number of Little Egrets and Grey Herons plus an unusual cross breed goose (think Canada-Greylag) and an Egyptian Goose.
By now it was getting close to 9am so we made our way to the visitor centre and proceeded to the first hide.
Most birds were distant but highlights included Goldeneye and a red headed Smew.
The sun was really shining and the wind seemed to drop so we decided to make our way to Old Hall Marshes RSPB.
Dave and I had polished off our one round of sandwiches each and Dave had eaten his Mars bar. Jono had stuck with his homemade carrot and almond soup which he had chivvied up with cayenne - to little avail it seems!
Old Hall Marshes is huge.
Reports of a very rare Red Breasted Goose had bought us here and our first view across fields gave us a vast number of Brent Geese and a few Curlews. As we meandered round we saw enormous further groups of Brent Geese and Lapwings so realised that picking one special goose out of this lot was not going to be easy. It was not helped by the now gale force winds that accompanied us.
Dave made his first really useful contribution to the day when he found us a niche between bushes and field to observe some more geese. This proved to be a real find as for the frist time we were able to get out of the wind.
Wending our way across the marshes we had a great view of a a Peregrine Falcon snatching a duck and whisking it away. It landed on the marsh and although some distance away we had time to set up the scopes and see it sitting proudly on a rock. Too far for photos but really super!
As we had one more port of call we decided to go back and I certainly had given up hope of seeing the rarity we had really come for. Then we came accross another birder who had set up scope and seemed fixed on a bird amongst a mass of Brent Geese. Bingo! He pointed out the Red Breasted Goose and although the wind was fierce, the light was great so we all had brilliant views. Taking photos was like using your scope on a fairground ride but I got a couple of record shots nevertheless.
It turned out that this birder spent his time reading the rings on geese. For Jen, Louise or Wendy who think we are saddos going birding all day you should meet this chap. He makes us as exciting as stun men on a Bond film!
So it was off to Chigborough Lakes which Jono had researched. By now we did not have much daylight left. Certainly, this could be great as there is a mixture of lakes, woods and fields. We did not see much other than the usual suspects but did hear a Lesser Redpoll (I do not count this as a lifer as I have to see it first!). On the way back to the car we saw a few Canada Geese in a field and low and behold there were a pair of Barnacle Geese.
This meant we had seen eight species of Geese in our day which was amazing and had a total count of 82 species overall for the day - a superb count for December.
The PS of this trip was the stop at Maldon on the way home for Dave to have a massive portion of chips - poor lad he did looked starved!!!
Many thanks Jono for a great day out!
