When I first started birding in the county some 35 years ago now, I never expected the day would come when I would set off to twitch a pochard. Between 1968 and 2000 there were regular flocks of up to 130 on numerous inland waters with good numbers occasionally on the Dyfi and off-shore in cold weather. Between 2010 and 2021 the species has become much, much rarer with no records at all in 2018 and 2021 and only one record in 2020. There are more records of ring-necked duck now than pochard which is almost unbelievable. And so it was that following Arfon’s report of a pair at Pant pool on the blog yesterday, off I headed today and successfully twitched a pair of this mega rare bird in the county. On the way there was a lovely kingfisher and two willow tits along the boardwalk at Cors Caron and I finished off at the Leri where the Slavonian grebe was showing well and a barn owl hunted in the gloaming at Glandwr.
Russell Jones