Saturday 25th December 2010

A walk down the River Medway between East Farleigh and Barming Bridges turned up a good count of ducks for this stretch of the river; 26x Tufted Ducks, 4x Pochard (3 male/1 female) and 1x Gadwall (a first for me on this stretch of water).  Thirty-one Cormorants and a Kingfisher were also seen.  However one bird stood out from the flock as it quite an extensive area of white around the base of the bill.  It lacked the greyish vermiculations I'd expect on a Scaup, but did not have a 'tuft', had a less-angled head and lacked black on it's bill.  The 'pale' area on the flanks seemed more extensive then on the neighbouring Tufted Ducks.  It probably is a Tufted but I wondered if there was any possibility it was Tufted X Scaup hybrid?

Further along the river 35x Canada Geese and the hybrid Greylag X Canada Goose were seen and a single Snipe was flushed from one of the streams.

Sunday 10th May

Another trip out to Teston, again along the River Medway from Barming Bridge but with my wife and kids. No sign of yesterday's Mandarin Duck, but good numbers of Yellowhammers and Whitethroat again.

A Grey Heron rowed lazily high across the sky, but it was on the ground on the river margins that most interest was to be found. Good numbers of Large Red Damselflies and

Banded Demoiselles were on the wing, with a smattering of butterflies, including 2x Comma, 3x Peacock, 8+ Green-veined Whites, 2 Large Whites and a Brown Argus (or female Common Blue?).

A couple of Swallows dipped over the river near Teston Bridge and hybrid Goose (Canada x Greylag?) tamely floated around the bank.