Baikal Beauty - the real McCoy?

Quite remarkably, January turned up trumps with not one but two mega ducks of the same species, at least one of which might prove to be the real deal. Having had the bird I twitched at March Farmers (Cambridgeshire, May 2019) unceremoniously dumped in the escapee bin (for no other reason that it arrived at the wrong time of year, as far as I could tell), I was especially keen to catch up with one of the two new arrivals in Britain. The first of these would have been a long shot (quite literally) and the long haul down to Gloucestershire put me off; the bird down south was also uncomfortably close to the dodgy duck haven of Slimbridge and was probably in line for its credentials to be shot to pieces. The second bird arrived later and closer to home; I say ‘closer’ – it was still a three-hour drive – but at least it was on the east coast (more likely migrant landing spot), and a fair way from any captive breeding programme. Still, as the days past, it seemed to develop more of a pattern in its behaviour, arriving at the site (which I used to visit in my York uni days) after midday, presumably to roost having fed in the morning. So, having endured the cross-country trip (which, recalling the various trips to Bempton, I was well used to by now), I arrived as the sun came out and with the hide practically empty. The bird in question hadn’t been seen that day. But I anticipated this; I had deliberately arrived at about 12pm and now had four hours to find it… on my own. This was no mean feat: despite the excellent light and clear views of Reservoir D, there were hundreds of birds on the water and most were some way off, right at the back of the reservoir. Twenty minutes passed, I nipped off for a wee in reserve centre, and I then continued my search for another twenty minutes or so…The guy next to me put me onto a nice drake Red-crested Pochard, a bird I hadn’t seen for ages. This was a nice surprise but wasn’t what I’d come for; I’d come back to this beauty once I’d connected with the mega. Just as I was telling myself to ‘expect’ the rarity to appear in my next scan of the distant Wigeon/Teal flock, and to have a little more belief in my ability to identify it at distance, I came across a Teal that…well, wasn’t a Teal! A quick check of the salient features and within seconds, I turned to the only other birder in the hide and announced my find: “I’ve got it! Pretty much the most distant bird at the back of the Wigeon flock, close to the back wall of the reservoir…!” This was (potentially) my first ever Baikal Teal, the real McCoy, surely! Thrilled to bits that I’d found the bird and there was no doubting its identity, I proceeded to get the other guy onto it (which took a while as there were no landmarks). There was another hide further round the reservoir and possibly closer to the bird in question, so I upped sticks and half-ran to it (not easy with osteoarthritis). I was a touch annoyed that other birders were in the hide already watching the mega; discussions with them, however, suggested I might still have been the ‘finder’ today. There were now about six of us watching the bird, all keen to get images or video of the thing: the light was not quite as good as from the southernmost hide but views were still pretty exceptional, and I hadn’t seen any photos on Birdguides that indicated that mine today would be inferior.

So I snapped away with my 2x converter and angle-finder, and was actually rather chuffed with the final results, albeit after some heavy cropping… Half-expecting not to even find the bird, or at least only get distant record shots, I eventually left the hide very happy indeed with a decent spread of images showing the bird in different postures, preening, flying and swimming. Other birds included Gadwall, Common Pochard, Eurasian Teal, Eurasian Wigeon, Goldeneye, Tufted Duck etc.