11th November 2018
Back to Whitlingham for the November WeBS count, and I was hopeful of seeing four Goosander that had been present all week. Of course they had departed at some point the day before. A female Red-crested Pochard was present, having been found by Gary the day before, but was elusive spending most of the time out of site in the bay on the north side of the main island. A flock of Siskins and some flyover Meadow Pipits were also noted. I checked the Black-headed Gulls for ringed birds, and found one Finnish metal-ringed gull, that frustratingly I could only partially read (from the part code it appears to be one of the regular birds).
Key counts (Great Broad & Little Broad):
Mute Swan: 20 (2017: 19, 2016: 30)
Gadwall:152 (2017: 143, 2016: 112)
Mallard: 56 (2017: 65, 2016: 64)
Shoveler: 4 (2017: 12, 2016: 11)
Pochard: 31 (2017: 28, 2016: 7)
Tufted Duck: 197 (2017: 343, 2016: 194)
Cormorant: 35 (2017: 47, 2016: 30)
Coot: 143 (2017: 146, 2016: 254)
What we can see from these counts is that basically everything is unremarkable! With the exception of Shoveler numbers being in single-figures, each species closely mirrors data from either 2017 or 2016. So whilst Tufted Duck numbers are much lower than last year, they are very similar to the previous one.
I added a couple of new leaf mining moths to both mine and the Whitlingham list, with Ectoedemia intimella in Sallow and Ectoedemia heringi in Oak. There was a handful of fungi around the broad too, including Shaggy Ink Cap, Crimped Gill (Plicatura crispa) and Stubble Rosegill.
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