Sunday 26th January 2025: Abberton Reservoir

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 We had a great morning birding at Abberton with Andy, although the bitterly cold wind made conditions challenging. We started at the Layer de La Haye causeway, where amongst vast flotillas of Coot, Tufted Duck and Pochard we managed to pick out a few Goldeneye and a number of grebes. The Great Crested Grebes were easy, but in the poor light it was trickier to pin down the smaller grebes, especially as they kept diving every time you wanted to lock onto them to study the key identification features. Eventually we managed to tune in to the differences though, and helpfully we were able to get photographic evidence of both species.

Black-necked Grebes

Slavonian Grebe

Goosander

Around the margins of the lake we picked out Lapwing and Redshank, and in the shallower waters here good numbers of Teal and a few Gadwall and Wigeon were seen. Having got to grips with the grebes, we were absolutely frozen, so decided to adjourn to Layer Breton causeway, enjoying a warm car journey on the way. There were lots of Greylag geese seen here, and soon Andy spotted a few White-fronted Geese beyond the island. A Canvasback had been reported amongst a distant flotilla of Pochard, and we tried hard to locate this. Every time I got onto a possible candidate, it dived, and in the end, rather frustratingly, we had to admit defeat.

Other highlights here included Great Egret, and as we drove back towards the visitor centre, a single Cattle Egret in the field. At the main reserve, we called in at Gwen’s hide, which was bereft of birds with a bitterly cold wind blowing in our faces. We did not linger long! Bypassing the second hide, we paused at the corner to observe a few waders at the edge of the reservoir, identifying Dunlin, Black-tailed Godwit and Ruff, before hurrying on to the next hide, where the star bird was a Spoonbill.

After a warming drink and some lunch at the visitor centre, we planned to continue birding, but by now the rain had arrived, and the cold wind was stronger than ever, so after a quick fruitless scan for Scaup at the causeway, we decided to call it a day. However, as we passed slowly across Layer Breton causeway, I spotted another one of our target birds - a cracking drake Smew, accompanied by a pair red-head females. A super finale to a rewarding morning’s birding, although it was rather disappointing to have to curtail our outing with some very good birds elsewhere on the reservoir which we hadn’t had a chance to find.

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