Even on a dull winter’s day there’s a lot of interest to be seen on my local pond. It often has an amazing the variety of ducks on it. There are the usual mallard ducks but at the moment they are outnumbered by other types such as tufted ducks.
There is another black and white duck on the pond at the moment which could easily be mistaken for a tufted duck from a distance. However this one has a white patch on its face and a distinct golden eye, thus giving it its name. There seem to be two males and one female on the pond.
When startled the golden eyes take off on a low whirring melodic flight over the water. I’ve tried to capture this on camera but with blurry results to date. That’s going to be a winter photographic challenge for me!
Goosanders are also visitors to the pond. The female has a dark brown crested head and blue-grey body whilst the male has a dark head and an off-whitish body.
I had to look up in my bird book for the ducks below. They are wigeons, the males of which have chestnut coloured heads with a yellow stripe on top.
There are often coots toot tooting on the pond.
One startled moor hen took off from the reeds when I got too close.
I’m going to keep a close eye on the pond over winter. It’ll be interesting to see the comings and goings and get to be more familiar with all that’s going on there. There’s always more to learn about nature. One of the ducks makes a really noisy distinctive call but I don’t know which one. I’m guessing it might be the wigeon so I’m away to look up duck calls on the internet now …
PS . When I went to the pond yesterday morning there were 13 Canada Geese floating around the middle of it.
Sarah's Wildlife Watch 