Barden Lake

Greylag Goose, Anser anser, Only a few were on the lake today, but I think the main flock may still have been nearby. At one point I heard them on the neighbouring fishing lake.

This cob mute swan has a rather strange looking tip to its beak, and I think it must have suffered a rather traumatic wound to the lower bill and tip: 

A very unusually coloured coot has been around for a couple of days, flocking with all the other waterfowl, including many "normal" coots, near the feeding area.

Just one of the two Egyptian Geese were seen today, which unfortunately I think we disturbed so that it flew off over the lake. It appears to have been eating the grass around the lake.

A drake tufted duck looks seriously at me!

This looks like an adult Black Headed Gull, Chroicocephalus ridibundus, just starting to replace its winter plumage with its brown headcap. As it darkens it tends to look sooty black rather than the brown of the fully developed cap - as do the winter head stripes. I have never seen any explanation of this. The bill is also already darkening up, showing less of a distinction between a redder base and a darker tip. By the time of the breeding season, the bill is often sufficiently dark overall to be almost concolorous with the headcap. This picture shows the very clear "white eyelid" effect

This next must be an immature Black Headed Gull, first winter perhaps. The most obvious feature are the dark-centred tertials, very clear in this individual. Tertials are apparently not true flight feathers but are located on the upper arm, near the body, and are used primarily to cover the primaries and secondaries while at rest. The so called tertial step is an important ID feature in some gull species while at rest - see this blog reference. Note also the orange base to the bill, characteristic it seems to me of overwintering first years and juveniles in general. It is a bit puzzling as there is little in the way of brown along the side of the wing - its all mainly at the back of the wing - but there is so much of it that I think it must still be a first winter. You can also see the dark tip to the tail, if only just, from this angle.

I think this is a different bird, from the other side of the lake taken much earlier, and a slightly worse photograph. However it's a very similar pattern of brown on the wing:

This is a rather more conventionally coloured wing, on a bird on a signpost stuck in the middle of the lake by the main (Western) feeding area, Again note the orangey rather than reddish bill (and legs?) of these young birds:

And another one from the Western side, again with some browning along the wing, although perhaps not quite so much as the previous picture. The small dark smudge to the front of the eye visible in most wintering birds is fairly obvious in this picture:

And here is the one Common Gull, Larus canus I saw, just before I was distracted by a "hooded" Black Headed Gull, and so I only confirmed it for sure when I looked at the photos later.

This is a drake Mallard, Anas platyrhynchos. The Mallard were in small groups across the lake today, but some at least appear to be pairing up.

There were a couple of cormorants, Phalocrocorax carbo, on the lake, diving for quite long periods and distances, so presumably fishing. One took off from the water and flew low across in front of one of the two islands, and the blurry photographs showed the white thigh patch of an adult in the breeding season.