Tale of Three Reservoirs:-

Anglers', Wintersett & Cold Hiendley

Barry and I set off at 8am to go to the three reservoirs in search of a couple of ticks for Barry and some nice images for me. In particular I dipped on the American Wigeon last week so it would be nice to catch up with it. As we set off from the car park the noise of geese alerted us to the arrival of some canada geese. We continued towards the hide in search of other birders who might have located our target birds.

There's a lot you can do at Anglers' Country Park. For instance you can go for a sail in the winter sunshine...

Great Crested Grebe ...or you can go flying...

Goosander ...and there's water skiiing...

Goosander ...which is fine till you fall off!

Goosander There's also the annual Anglers' CP Biathlon, usually with several hundred competitors from North America: six laps of the reservoir in the air and six swimming laps...

Canada Geese Canada Geese

Armed with some up-to-date info we eventually located the long-tailed duck. Here's just one shot for the record.
Long-tailed Duck

When you think about it, a sort of splodgy, mucky bird!

We had been joined by now by another birder from Notts called Carl. He stayed with us for most of our stay. I think he had a good day.

I tried to get some flight shots of some of the many goosanders on the reservoir. I was quite pleased with the results.

Goosander

Goosander

Goosander

Although much more distant my attempts at photographing goldeneye and pochard in flight captured a few nice memories too.

Goldeneye

Pochard

This smart drake mallard was a much easier 'prey' for my lens.

Mallard As was this goldeneye as he rode the waves.

Goldeneye

Geese photos are often lacking in interest so I was pleased when something [a dog, no doubt] put the canada geese up and they came towards me on a nice angle...

Canada Geese

Canada Geese

It was quite a walk to the north end of the reservoir but Barry had kept an eye on the large number of wigeon grazing on the grass. By now they too had been disturbed and were in the water. Spot one that's a bit different!

American Wigeon

Not easy through the bins! Enlarged as if looking through a scope and it's much clearer in the good light we had that morning. [Same photo]

American Wigeon

There follows a selection of my american wigeon photos. First of all, the self-inflating american wigeon!

American Wigeon

It wasn't easy to keep track of the bird amongst the several hundred other wigeon.

American Wigeon

But it was nice to get some good close-up views.

American Wigeon

American Wigeon

American Wigeon

American Wigeon

After a while the birds took off and I lost track of the american.

Wigeon

We headed back towards the car park. A bullfinch was near the visitor centre.

Bullfinch Trying to find scaup or smew on Wintersett reservoir was unproductive to say the least. Frustrating, as the smew was obviously still around and was reported on Sunday. Barry recommended I look closely at the right hand edge of a flock of Canada geese distant on the ploughed field  further ahead.

This is a poor quality, much-enlarged photo but it does show, for the record, that there were four egyptian geese present too. Two to the left and two to the right of the look-out goose.

Egyptian Geese

We set off for the far side of Wintersett. I thought I knew the way but I went further than I realised and took us to the far end of Cold Hiendley reservoir. By this time I was in some back pain with carrying scope and camera and felt completely knackered. [Is knackered an appropriate blog word?] Carl probably thought we were wasting his time. Here's Carl.

Carl

Eventually we devised our own route back through the undergrowth and reached the dam that separates Wintersett from Cold Hiendley. I had lost interest by then. A lone dinghy-man was sailing around and had obviously displaced all the birds. Carl and Barry walked on towards the bridge. I followed reluctantly. Barry realised there was a very large flock of tufted duck down below on Cold Hiendley, taking refuge presumably from dinghy-man.

I put my scope up. Eureka! I homed in on two drake scaup. QED! [Quod Erat Demonstrandum: Which Was Demonstrated. There's nothing quite like a bit of pretentious pedantry when you're feeling low!] Carl walked on ahead until we lost sight of him.

A kestrel hovered over the trees as the light began to fade.

Kestrel

It was another grand day's birding. Barry said 'It'll soon be summer!' You see for Barry summer means any time after December 21st as the days grow ever optimistically longer.

Yes, just can't wait for that good old sinusoidal curve to kick in!

Malcolm: What is he on about?

Sheila: Don't ask me! I'm not a doctor!