20th December

Peter Law was at the Meadow at first light where he was able to confirm that the BARNACLE GEESE were still present first thing though they flew off before 8 a.m.

Today I did the WeBS survey for Port Meadow. It was actually quite interesting to make accurate counts for all the different species that were present. Here are the totals.

840 Wigeon
93 Teal
11 Shoveler
20 Mallard
7 Moorhen
1 Coot
3 Mute Swan
261 Greylag Goose (including some hybrids)
2 Cormorant
1 Grey Heron
47 Lapwing
1 Golden Plover
1 Snipe
2 Redshank
45 Black-headed Gull
2 Lesser Black-backed Gull
1 Herring Gull

There were no real surprises on the survey. Wigeon numbers were a bit down on some of the peak counts this month: numbers seem to vary with the conditions and when it's very wet it attracts a lot more of the grazing ducks.

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