Fowl watching is a good January outdoor activity

Fowl watching is a good January outdoor activity

January is a good time to take a look at local ponds or reservoirs to see the wild fowl, which congregate there over the winter months.

We recently visited the flooded gravel pits at Knotford Nook, near Otley. You can scan the waters here from the roadside and there’s always something interesting to see. It was a bright, frosty morning, the willows along the far banks glowed orange in the sunlight and the lagoon presented an elegant composition in black and white.

The waters provide a resting place for large numbers of black-headed gulls, now quite ghostly without their striking summer chocolate-brown head plumage, and a family of swans cruised in a dignified fashion among the smaller fry. Coots seem to have had a successful breeding season, and their sooty forms provide the contrast as they bustled round, bobbing and diving and quarrelling noisily. Here and there among the throng, we spotted the neat black forms of male tufted ducks.

These jaunty characters have brilliant white patches on their flanks and long dropping crests that flow out from their glossy heads as they potter about in the breezy sunshine.

However, closer scrutiny revealed that not all was black and white. There were a fair number of widgeon in small sub-groups scattered across the pool. Ducks can be tricky to identify, especially as you are often straining to see them in the distance with the wind in your eyes.

We always look out for the males, which have the more striking plumage than the females generally to be found accompanying them.

The widgeon drake is a fine fellow with grey black, rich chestnut coloured head and a creamy patch down the middle of his face.

Then, quite close to us, we spotted a dumpy shape, quite tiny in comparison to the coots and tufties, and a beautiful rich brown with lighter brown neck and sides. That characteristic head shape with the forward thrusting bill identified it straight away – the little grebe – smallest and shyest member of the grebe family. It’s the master of the disappearing trick and, once aware of you, will dive and swim underwater to the nearest cover, not emerging till the watcher has gone.

There was another treat in store for us. In the second lagoon on the other side of the road, were a small number of goldeneye.

The drakes are truly spectacular; glossy black above and with dazzling white flanks and chests, they also have a round white patch on each check and vivid yellow eyes. The sunshine and the presence of the females had clearly excited them and they were engaged in their courtship display which involves snapping back their heads right onto their backs, bills pointing skywards and white chest puffed up, then jerking forward again.

One drake would start and soon all had joined in while the drabber females continued swimming and diving, apparently unimpressed.