A productive couple of hours on the southern border of Oxfordshire. The redhead Smew was not only on the same pit as when I lasted visited on 7th February, but was pulled out of the water on exactly the same branch, above.
The Smew was here:
The other side of the peninsular produced a distant Black-necked Grebe. It was mobile and fishing constantly:
I wondered if this bird may have been part of the flock of 5 Black-necked Grebes that had spent the last couple of months on nearby Sonning Eye gravel pits, so I popped over to have a look.
As well as all the usual suspects, such as Great Crested Grebe, above…
Sonning held 3 Goosander (above), a Little Egret, a singing Cetti’s Warbler, a flock of 30 Siskin and 18 Goldeneye. I could find no sign of the Black-necked Grebes in the small bay past the sailing club, perhaps they have moved on?
The male Goldeneye were displaying, bobbing their heads up and down, whilst their evocative calls sounded out over the lake, something like this: