Not been birding outside of the garden area for weeks so a quick afternoon visit up to Sheepwash at Carsington was a nice change. We caught up with 3 of the 4 1st winter Scaup at the reservoir. The wildfowl were all flying round everywhere due to the safety boat patrolling the waters edges so it took a while before I picked up a single Scaup flying straight at us down the reservoir, once it settled it gave good views in the poor light before joining 2 more which had sneaked in unseen! They then were flushed again by the boat!
Record shots taken in really bad light with the maximum digital zoom… not good!
Still the pic above neatly shows a comparison with a female Tufted Duck.
2 of the birds….
Also on the reservoir was the regular Great Northern Diver. We dipped the female Common Scoter that had been seen earlier, not a bad set of sea birds for a inland reservoir about as far from the sea as as you can get!
GoneBirding 