Views of Smews and Owl Ogling

An after work sortie with Phil Rogers to have a look at some local Short-eared Owls. The location for these is being withheld as it's considered that the site would be unable to cater for lots of birders/photographers showing up. Having now visited I have to say it seems a pretty sensible decision.

Eyebrook Reservoir and drake Goldeneye.

As the owls usually start to perform towards sunset we thought it best to pop into Eyebrook and find some Smews. It seems as if they were only too happy to oblige as we found a total of sixteen with six adult drakes on show. As I mentioned in a previous post Eyebrook is a very reliable spot for this species and at the moment it's the best in the UK. Whilst looking at these attractive ducks Phil found another classy species when he picked out an adult Mediterranean Gull. If you're a fan of awful record shots then you will not be disappointed!

Wigeon and Lapwing.

Plenty of Lapwings were present, perhaps over a thousand and they shared the muddy margins with a good sized flock of Golden Plovers. The afternoon sunshine was rather bright and it certainly brought out the colours on the many ducks with the drake Goldeneyes in particular looking stunning. As the sun was just beginning to sink and with a distance to travel we had to leave the res behind and head over to the owls.

Dodgy record shot time, adult Med and eight of the Smews.

Another observer had one of the owls in view as we arrived and from then on we were treated to some decent views of up to three birds for the next twenty minutes or so. My attempts to photograph them were less than fantastic but once again I'll share some of the results here. With darkness beginning to fall the owls disappeared off to roost and we took the decision to head for home.

More dross pics, Shortie on post and one tussling with a crow.