It was a cold and frosty morning, with a sprinkling of lying snow, so I thought there might be a bit of cold weather movement. On arrival things looked promising, the reservoir was ice free and from the car park there were 13 Goosander and a Goldeneye. I walked around clockwise into a biting wind, the launch from the sailing club went out (braver man than me) putting up the wildfowl there were c'50 Pochard and 4 Shoveler amongst the commoner birds, at this point the Goosander and Goldeneye departed. I carried on around and in the east corner there were 10 Teal, this was proving to be a good day. It was then that a small duck flew in fast and landed, straight away I realised it was a redhead Smew, at this point the sun came out so I had to hurry round the the east end to view up the reservoir and the bird was halfway towards the sailing club feeding happily.
The small pool held a dozen Wigeon and most of the duck from the main reservoir relocated here as in the meantime sailing had begun. I saw Kingfisher, 40 Redwing a few Bullfinch and a dozen or so Siskin.
I had a quick check on the way back but could not see the Smew but it could easily have been feeding near to the edge and I could easily have missed it. The only other sighting of note were 12 Common Gull.
2010 now equals the best ever year for Shustoke Reservoir.
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