I've seen a few Hooded Merganser in the past but none have been accepted. I was surprised to see that a bird on a gravel pit in Chilham, Kent was accepted a few years back so when a bird turned up near Tonbridge, Kent, I thought i'd go and see it for insurance. All of the Hoodies were thrown out at one time then the BBRC/BOURC started the ball rolling again, wildfowl are always going to present a problem, especially if they are commonly kept in captivity. Wild birds can act tame and escaped birds can act wild etc etc.
I picked up Devil Birder, who also wanted to see this bird, and we set off. It didn't take long to get down there and as we arrived and parked at Five Oak Green we bumped into Dan 'Pointless' Pointon, who seemed to think that you could park closer to Moat Farm, from where a footpath led to the bird. It seemed like a good idea to jump in with him as we didn't know how far away the farm was.
As it turned out, you couldn't get closer so we jumped out as Pointless returned to the village to park. Now the pager says 'take the footpath to the gravel pits' but what it doesn't say that there are many footpaths and they are not in a straight line. From the farm you can take the left footpath or the right footpath and still get to the pit where the bird is. I strongly advise that if you're going, you take an ordnance survey map or get precise directions. It took us over an hour to find the pit and, if we'd known the way, fifteen minutes ! Pointless, who'd gone back to park before walking back to the farm, bumped into some birders coming back from the pit and got precise directions and arrived forty five minutes before us ! Another birder we met along the way, decided to try a different direction and we never saw him again. Ironically, as we got back to the road, we bumped into another birder who wanted to know the way and we were able to give precise directions to him, so he got there a lot quicker than we did.
The female Hoody was frequently diving on it's chosen gravel pit. It flapped it's wings occasionally and they seemed to be all present and correct and when washing and scratching, appeared to have no rings (I guess this has already been checked). It stayed mostly towards the centre of the pit (but then, so did the Coots), and never came close, but then, it never had a reason to. Time will tell with this bird but I don't know if there is much difference between it and the Chilham bird. Certainly I've seen birds with similar credentials in the past (pre re-acceptance onto the British list), which weren't accepted.
We often see Black-headed Gulls with pink flushes but this is one of the pinkest I've seen. Could this be something to do with diet ?
'Old Whitey' with the palest iris of the three second winters we've had this year
'Sooty' named after it's 'dirty' looking face
'Kumi' still noticeable in flight
The Little Owl has been showing on 100 Acre
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