A Ring-necked Duck at Abberton Reservoir

29th December 2024

After a most successful morning on East Mersea, time to pop in to Abberton to see what was around. At the Layer de la Haye causeway the regular "Rocky" the pipit was on show strutting along the water's edge, and must be the most photographed pipit in Essex.

The only other passerine of note was a male Stonechat which luckily was quite confiding.

Goldeneye and Goosander numbers are still incredibly low compared to the 1960s when I started coming to Abberton, and I suspect this is in part due to climate change as many other winter visitors are also down in numbers. Matt Taylor from BBC Weather says that we now get three weeks less frost each winter than we did 50 years ago!!!

 

The only wader representatives today were singleton Redshank and Green Sandpiper.

Now on to Gwen's Hide for the grebes. There were just two Black-necked Grebes in view, at least at a reasonable distance, although never together.

Eventually the Slavonian Grebe also put in an appearance.

Over the years I have photographed many Black-necked and Slavonian Grebes, but today was the first time I have managed to get both in one shot!!!!

However, the star of the show today was a drake Ring-necked Duck which was only found during the morning. Although it was on full show from the Layer de la Haye causeway it had been asleep for the last three hours.

It was only during one of those mysterious moments  when a perceived threat causes hundreds of ducks to swim purposefully away from the bank that it woke up to see what was going on, long enough for a couple of shots. Here it is in the company of a female Pochard.

Well, that was unexpected!!!