A somewhat dreary day today with a lingering fog and lack of sunshine that made for some challenging viewing. I gave the county the old heave ho and made my way just over the border to Eyebrook for one of my periodic visits. Luckily the birding was a bit less drab than the weather and I enjoyed a fairly good session.
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| Great White Egret with friends. |
Soon after arriving at the Stoke Dry car park I saw a Great White Egret feeding in the shallows, sometimes in the company of a Little Egret or Grey Heron though often on its own. A little further along I saw my first Pintails of the day, by the time I'd finished I'd seen over twenty of these attractive ducks. Numbers of dabbling ducks in particular seemed high and that may well have been due to the low water levels. Exposed mud was probably the reason that so many Lapwings were gathered up at the sharp end keeping company with a small number of Golden Plovers, Also feeding in the same area were a number of Dunlins, I estimated about forty in total. The other waders noted on my visit were eight Snipe and two Redshanks.
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| Pintail and Wigeon. |
The foggy conditions meant that I couldn't find the Great Northern Diver that has been present here and it looked as if I was going to miss out on the reported redhead Smew too. Luckily as I was about to leave a text from Eyebrook regular Phil Rogers alerted me to the presence of a drake and redhead. A quick retracing of my steps followed and I managed some distant views of the Smews before I left. Apologies for the poor nature of some of the photos but it was far from ideal weather for pics.
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| Dunlin and Smew record shot. |
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