8th January 2020 Abberton Reservoir

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Today I visited Abberton Reservoir near Colchester where there have been recent reports of quite a few species which are not possible to see locally and as usual it was well worth the trip.
I managed to add 8 species to this year's list, many of which began with the letter  'G'  :
Goldeneye, Goosander, Great crested grebe, Great white egret, Egyptian goose, (Greater) Scaup, Swallow and White fronted goose.
The swallow was a surprise but as there was only one of them I guess we can assume that Summer has not yet arrived!
The male goldeneyes were performing courtship displays where they tipped their heads back onto their backs which is something I have not seen before and probably should have videoed but I did not think of it at the time.
There had been reports of  Bewick swan and Smew recently but I did not have time to search thoroughly to find these today. Maybe when Jenny and Tim next come to Essex we might be able to locate them although we will probably see them when we visit Dungeness for the annual January trip.
Photos of some of the birds from Abberton today are shown below.
Andy.

Goldeneye 

Goosander (female)

Goosander (male)

Great white egret

Scaup

White fronted goose


Comments

Jen Holter said…
Lovely photos, as always. The Swallow is unusual at this time of year, although interestingly there are reports of one in E. Sussex and also of an overwintering House Martin.
14 January 2020 at 04:02
HK said…
Great photo of the Egret!
18 January 2020 at 13:13
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