Great White Egret, Goosanders and a Slavonian Grebe at Abberton Reservoir

23rd November 2017

A lovely sunny day so time for a visit to Abberton Reservoir and of course start with some breakfast and a cup of tea on the Layer Breton causeway. Still fairly quiet, although the gulls were providing some entertainment despite the fact that the public are now being discouraged from feeding bread to the ducks. The performers today, in order of appearance were Black-headed Gulls, a Common Gull and a Herring Gull.

One of the two Great White Egrets present was as usual in the trees on the northern bank, about half way between the two causeways, a distance of a few hunderd yards. However, it eventually flew down the northen bank towards the the Layer Breton causeway and landed what can only be described as reasonably close by comparison, allowing a few shots to be taken before it disappeared into the trees.

On the Layer de la Haye causeway an eclipse male Wigeon was showing quite well by the sluice as well as a flock of 17 Goosanders, which were behaving in an unusual manner.

The new sluice has always attracted Gossanders to feed on the shoals of fish that gather there but normally as you approach along the wall, swim swiftly out into the reservoir. However, today their behavior was totally different and they would periodically swim as a group towards the sluice and some would dive right in the sluice itself, even whe you were standing close by. This provided some amazing opportunities for some close-ups of this normally wary species.

This female dived right inside the sluice and caught a small Perch, which seemed to be the main fish species in the shoals.

........and as always it is nice to get a few action shots..............

Ever since we arrived at the causeway I had been scanning the reservoir for the reported Slavonian Grebe with no success, but then it suddenly appeared from behind the sluice right in front of us. The reason we hadn't seen it was that it had been hugging the bank around the reservoir and was swimming fast every time it dived, We followed it along the causeway and, even when running every time it dived, had trouble keeping up with it.

I think that with the combination of its naturally red eye and the sun, I should have used some red-eye reduction.

What an absolutely fantastic day!!!