Over 1400 Pintail at Edgerly

Smashed the Salop record of Pintail! Just in this picture there is 80+ Pintail out of the 1400 that were on the floods at Edgerly.  

This afternoon I had 3 Yellow-legged Gull including this 1st winter, with over 1500 large gulls at Telford Crematorium 

Left the crematorium, arrived at Prisorlee Lake to find a 3rd winter Caspian Gull with just 10 large gulls! It was only there for less than a minute.

The feral Lesser Canada Goose from last winter was still in the same field as the gulls at the Telford Crematorium. 

  Early yesterday afternoon, I made a visit to the Seven floods in the Edgely/Meverly area. Last time I was here was two years ago when myself and Jim Almond found a Brent Goose with 250+Pintail, 500+ Teal and 700+Wigeon. The floods were in front of me as I approached Hayes Farm. To my right I could see 100s and 100s of wildfowl. I walked at the back of the farm and looking over the floods, I tried to count the Pintail individually. It was made easy by all the ducks staying putt on the water. I had not even gone halfway through the flock and I was already on 500! When I came to the end of the flock, I had over 1000 birds!! There were other Pintail scattered around that I had not yet counted to my left. In the end I had smashed the Salop record with a total of 1400+Pintail!! there were more as I could only see a small percentage of the floods. Some 25 years ago I had over 500 birds in the same area, but I never thought that I would see over 1000 in Shropshire.
  Other totals included 400+Wigeon, 300+Teal, 60+shoveler, 22 Gooseander, 300+Greylag Geese, 42 Coot, 3 Tufted Duck and a single male Pochard. Also I flushed 61 Snipe nearby, a vocal Green Sandpiper flew over and over 800 Lesser-black backed Gulls were in the fields. When 2 male Peregrine came into view, I thought now this is going to be a sight. They came through a few times but all the ducks stayed on the deck.

Before hitting floods, I had this male Kestrel enjoying the morning sun at Berrington

 

The floods at Edgerly where some 2000+ ducks are hanging out. 

 

So many Pintail and not a shooter in sight

  Just two minute drive up road at Crew Green, I crossed the bridge over the Seven back into England and noticed a single gull, a field away from the road. I pulled to the side as the rain was starting to come down hard. From inside the car I had a look with my bins and thought this looks good for a Caspian Gull. I had took a few pics and it was in the air. Shite! I couldn't see where it went from inside the car and braved the weather. It returned just a little further up along the River Vrynwy and settled back down on the floods two fields away. Shite again! I was soaked to the bone and returned to the shelter of the car. Then it flew over the road in front of me and joined the Lesser-black backed Gulls that I could see ahead of me. I drove up to relocate it and immaterially found an adult Yellow-legged Gull, but no sign of the casp. I could hear Whooper Swan coming towards me. I looked behind and observed 2 adults following the River Vyrnwy down stream towards Melverly. It was getting dark and all the gulls, including the YLG, flew off west into Powys.
  It was only when I returned home that I looked at the pics and was not happy that it was a casp and reidentified it as a 1st winter Yellow-legged Gull. Shite again!!

Found this 1st winter Yellow-legged Gull on the floods, which at the time I thought was a Caspian Gull. 

  

Adult Yellow-legged Gull at Masebrook

2 adult whooper Swan over the River Vryrwy was the icing on the cake to end a cracking and my last day of birding in 2015!

Two days ago at Venus Pool, among the 10 Pintail and 50+Snipe of note, was this Greylag Goose with an orange neck collar with black letters, PSY. It also had a metal ring on it's right leg. I sent the info off and got a very quick reply from Kane Brides. The goose was ringed by Eleanor Stroud at Lake Windermere, Cumbria as an adult on the 27/6/15. 

Also had this Goldfinch and Great-spotted Woodpecker at Venus Pool

On boxing day I had this adult LBBGXHerring Gull at Prisorlee Lake.

On the same day, just up road at the Telford Crematorium there were 71 great-black backed, 800+Herring and 200 Lesser-black backed Gulls. 

Great sound! Slackwax is a German musical duo of electronic music formed in 2005 and made up of Bernd Batke and Peter Hoppe. Batke, at the same time frontman, singer and bass player of the neo-country band Smokestack Lightnin' whereas Hoppe was a Nuremberg-based music producer. The style of the duo is electro, moody and atmospheric with elements of jazz, blues, soul, country together with contemporary beats and modern production techniques. They are signed to the German label Modernsoul. The duo released a self-titled EP titled Slackwax in 2008, followed by EP "Close to My Fire (in 2010), their best known hit and EPNight Out (2012) and are preparing for a full studio album for 2013 with "Night Out" as the first single from the release.^[1] They also released two mix EPs, Night Out – The Remixes in 2012 and Slackwax reworks Mousse T. also in 2012 offering a completely new perspective on Mousse T. hits with vocals from Anna Leyne on the tracks. Slackwax are most famous for their 2010 hit single "Close to My Fire" (written by Peter Hoppe and Anna Leyne). They have produced for Fritz Kalkbrenner, Mousse T., Bela B, The Baseballs, Oceana, Trinah, Onita Boone and others.