Seymour Birdies Diary: A Mid-December Visit to Abberton Reservoir

5th December 2020

To be perfectly honest, in view of the relatively mild winter so far, I wasn't too optimistic in finding many new winter arrivals since our last visit. However, as we drew up on the Layer Breton causeway we were immediately greeted by one particularly showy individual, a White-cheeked Pintail. These birds are found in the Caribbean, South America and the Galapagos Islands so almost certainly an escape despite not being ringed. Abberton does seem to attract a disproportionately high number of exotic species.

There weren't many ducks from the causeway but some large flocks of both Canada and Greylag Geese. A quick scan of the flocks revealed one somewhat smaller individual which on close inspection turned out to be a juvenile White-fronted Goose. I saw my first ever White-fronted Goose here in the 1960s so that was a good start. There were also five Bean geese present but they were very distant and frequently out of view.

As I peered over the wall at the Layer-de-la-Haye causeway I was once again reminded of the 1960s as on the east side the water was absolutely black with a huge raft of thousands of predominantly Tufted Ducks and also a few Pochard. The drake tufties were positively shining in late morning sun.

Amongst the raft were probably 20 or so Goosanders, still well down on the usual winter numbers of 100+. On this occasion they weren't coming into the sluice to fish, but did come close enough for some shots.

This female was obviously having a bad hair day.

On the north-east bank a Great White Egret was fishing in the shallows and allowed me to approach quite closely to such an extent that I had trouble getting it all in the frame. This would not have been possible just five years ago.

But once again the stars of the show today were the three Long-tailed Ducks which were hiding in the raft. The first two shots are females with a dark bill.