Poaching

That's how I feel going "out of area", away from my usual haunts. After spending all morning trying to kick off a heavy cold by (not) finding a Shrike, I decided to give Stewartby and Brogborough a look, more out of curiosity than anything else. I believe the technical term for birds of interest on Stewartby is "bugger all", so didn't know what to expect at Brogborough, however even from the car on the way in it was evident that the place was covered in ducks.

There were probably about 500 Tufted and a couple of hundred Pochard resting fairly close together and the prospect of going through them all didn't exactly fill me with joy, so I went for my standard (lazy) approach in situations like this - anything good will be on the edges. Luckily, a fairly quick search found 2 female Goldeneye on the edge of the main raft, that then started chasing each other about, so job done. I reckon it would be a safe bet for one of you dedicated types to find something better amongst the main bunch but I really couldn't be bothered with the way I was feeling.

Jim