A Drake Smew at Amwell

23rd December 2023

When I started going to Amwell during the 1990s Smew were a fairly regular winter visitor, driven down from the north by the cold weather. During those halcyon days counts in double figures were common-place.  However today significant cold weather is a thing of the past, even in the north, and therefore far fewer birds move south so numbers are normally low singles if at all.

In the last few days a redhead Smew had been reported on Great Hardmead Lake and on the 21st December Ray Hooper glimpsed a drake Smew through the trees on Sheepcote Farm Lake. The redhead was present again today by the Gladwin Hide so I set off to try my luck. I had a quick look through the very restricted view over Sheepcote as I walked up the track to no avail, but I did notice that there was some rather noisy tree works going on so perhaps the Smew had been displaced on to Great Hardmead.

From the main viewpoint I scanned the lake and I had no luck in finding the redhead but did manage to locate the drake fishing off the western side of the island in front of Gladwin Hide, so set off at pace. When I arrived at the hide it was now fishing on the far side of the lake and then started swimming north up the lake. I lost it for a while but then I re-found it flying back to my island and as luck would have it it landed right in front of the hide.

It really was a smart bird, well all drakes are aren't they, and put on a display just swimming up and down to orientate itself.....................

....................... and then found some time for a preen.

At one point it was fishing under the tree roots on the island when it had an altercation with a Great Crested Grebe and flew into open water and composed itself by having a wing flap. That will do nicely.

But the most amazing thing was when it hauled itself out of the water on to a semi-submerged log for a rest. In all the years I have been watching Smew I have never seen this behaviour before. Even the Pochard seemd to be surprised!!!!