Hi Jon, We had 190 Gadwall, well up to average but just 2 Pochard found by a very diligent member of my counting team on Noah’s among the thousands of other ducks. And only one Great crested Grebe which was on Decoy. Contrast that with Cheddar that is covered in Pochard and quite a few GCG.

In response to Martins 4158 Widgeon at Shapwick I can claim 35 from my Westhay Moor Webs, however I did count 255 Gadwall, they are always the predominant duck species here but this is a record for Westhay since Webs began. No Pintail have shown up yet but 4 Goosander (3 males and a female) have arrived and I expect their numbers will increase – other species counts were 76 Teal, 90 Mallard, 65 Shoveler and 22 Tufties. There were small groups of Siskin and Redpolls feeding in the Alders at the North end of Daggs Lane Drove. Of interest – I haven’t seen a Pochard here this winter so far, my highest count in the past 5 years was 16 although it’s normally only one or two, looking back at the count records the yearly maxima was normally about 2 going back to 2008 between 2008 and 2005 it was in the 20’s but prior to that it was in the double 100’s and in 2003 a count of 404 was recorded ! So what made Westhay “Pochard adverse” in such a short time span ? There seems to be no shortage of them at Ham Wall ?