Fudge duck

Last Sunday Phil, Martin and myself had planned a trip to Radnor and to Llanbwchllyn Lake to catch up with the Ferruginous Duck. We had a eventful trip up with two foxes and a Barn Owl seen but the biggest shock was Martin actually saw the owl from the back of the car. We made good time and found the site pretty quick, it's  always nice to go somewhere new. The walk down to the lake was great, we could see Redwing overhead and a Great Spotted Woodpecker was drumming in the background. Once we got to the hide it was very smart with a thatched roof but once we got inside we could see it was not built for birdwatchers but more likely Oompaloompas. I had to look though my scope on my knees and when you sit down you got a pices of wood in the way because the windows were so narrow and that's my moaning over. On the lake it was fairly busy, most of the Tufted Ducks were in the left hand corner and close but has we scanned through them it was clear our target bird was not there. To the right the sun  was coming up and made it hard work scanning. Also present where  teal, Mallard, and a few very noisy Canada Geese, Mute Swan, both Little and Great Crested Grebes and Coot. After a coffee Martin had a quick walk but came back with no sighting of the duck and has I was losing the feeling in my legs I went for a walk Phil joined me. Leaving the hide we closed the door and little did we know that we had locked Martin in the hide. We walked down the path along the lake where we came to a pump house and we could hear curlew calling, we looked up and had 3 birds displaying overhead. It's one of those sounds you never tire of hearing. We carried on walking and we came to a point that we could see the right hand corner of the lake and straight away we both got on to the Fudge duck, we had great views and we both thought we better phone Martin but as always normal no signal. We walked back to the hide and let Martin out of the hide and it was like pay back from him finding all the birds when we went to Dorset. It was great to walk back and the duck was still present and job done.

Next up was Llangorse Lake and a quick search for Sand Martins but apart from a real close view of a Cetti Warbler it was very quiet so we drove down to CCG to have a look for Ring Ouzel and Wheatear with no joy. It was looking like the best birding was first thing again and it was the same as we dipped the Water Pipit at Llwyn Onn Reservoir.

Last up was to try for Red Grouse at the Blorenge, I have never seen the carpark so full. We did a fairly big section of heather and could hear one at one point and we found some droppings but again no luck. We were just too late in the day and there were too many people around. When Phil was finishing of a bag of doughnuts Martin and myself had what we thought could have been a Ringtail Hen Harrier as it moved down the valley fast but we will never know for sure. We also all had our first butterfly of the year and it was this moth eaten Peacock.