Having overcome the satnav attempting to send us to Downham, Billericay not Downham Market (!), we arrived at the small, churned up bit of non-descript wasteland on the eastern edge of the town, where the Serin had been residing for the past few days. The bird was last seen half an hour previously, however it wasn't too long to we saw what we were looking for as the Serin appeared, loosely associating with a few Goldfinches. Nice one! It disappeared shortly afterwards before showing again in bushes by the railway.
This was a bit of a running theme to be honest, as it showed for a short while a couple more times before disappearing again. Having not shown for sometime and happy with the views we'd had, we decided to depart for nearby Welney to get out fix of swans!
The weather having been fairly bright at Downham, was now bright sunshine and clear blue sky...perfect! The drive over to Welney across the vast, flat landscape produced our first group of Whooper Swans, as well as a nice cream-crown Marsh Harrier hunting a reedy, roadside dyke.
We arrived at Welney to the sound of Whoopers immediately. Such an awesome, calming sound! The view across Lady Fen to the east was lovely, with scattered swans in the foreground and the endless fields beyond.
We headed across the bridge to the main observatory to be greeted with a sea of Pochard & Mallard, together with several Whooper Swans at close quarters. This was birding at it's easiest, but after the Serin giving us the run around earlier...why not! We had a arrived just before feeding time and so hung around to watch the birds going mental for the big scoops of food flung out by one of the wardens.
The sun shining brightly behind us, offered some great photo opportunities. It really makes you realise how stunning male Pochards really are in direct sunlight with that rich orangey head and beady red eye.
The Whoopers too were a pleasure to see up close and in fact (after checking my notes) were my first ones for 3 years!!
A lone Bewick's Swan (below) was also out on the main lagoon, while the area was just generally full of wildfowl with lots of Wigeon, good numbers of Pintail, Teal & Shoveler. Waders were represented by a distant gathering of Black Tailed Godwits, a few vocal Redshank flying about, plus Dunlin & Golden Plover overhead with plenty of Lapwings.
A wander to a couple of hides produced similar fare plus a singing Cetti's Warbler, my first of the year. After polishing off a coffee and some nice food at the cafe, we enjoyed brief views of a couple of Tree Sparrow by the feeders.
Soon after, we departed to have a bit of a drive about to look for more swans between here and Manea. Several small groups of Whoopers were seen, before we found a larger group a couple of miles away from Manea. It was cool to see them away from the reserve, doing a bit of birding from the warmth of the car!
That concluded a great day, full of quality rather than quantity but very enjoyable non the less!
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