Etherow Country Park : 31st October 2016
On the last day of October we took a drive out to Etherow Country Park where I hoped to add to my year list what is normally the easiest year tick of Mandarin Duck I am ever likely to find. As it happened they proved to be a little elusive and weren’t to be found either on the pond or canal or up at the mill race where I have previously seen dozens of them. We did encounter a few Egyptian Geese mixed in with the Canadas and we got a nice Grey Wagtail up at the mill race. We didn’t get a Dipper, though, which we might have expected.
We didn’t mean to but, as it turned out, we did the whole circuit of the woods, coming back down the far side of the woods and past the pools – still no Mandarin Ducks though. We realised that we had been more than two hours walking and that our parking was going to run out so we had to hot foot it back to the car park all the time thinking it would be a big waste of money if we got a parking fine. The prospect of that seemed less onerous when we eventually did run into a couple of groups of Mandarins – each one with a male looking pretty fine. This was bird number 195 for the year so I was pleased with that and, also, we didn’t get a parking ticket.
It was a lovely day for a walk and the only objection we had was that the café closes too early so we missed tea and cake !