I was the first car in the car park but only by a few mins, as I was getting the scope out another car arrived with two birders.
I took a walk along to Toft Bank in search of the Smew, I was hoping for Goldeneye and Goosander too as both birds have frustratingly evaded me so far this year.
It wasn't long before I found a female Goldeneye so that was a good start, there didn't appear to be much on the water at all, scope views of the opposite bank showed a large flock of Canada Geese with quite a lot of Mallard and Great Crested Grebe distributed across the far side of the reservoir.
There were loads of Pied Wagtail and even more Meadow Pipit hunting around the grassy verge. The water close in held quite a few Coot and quite a lot of Little Grebe.
Coot
I arrived at Toft Bank and found the Black-necked Grebe which had also been reported but I couldn't find the Smew anywhere.
Black-necked Grebe
A group of Canada Geese containing a single Greylag Goose flew over head and I got to watch a Buzzard in the field hunting for worms.
The two other birdwatchers had gone on ahead and when returning kindly gave me directions to a field with a flock of Greylag Geese which also contained 2 European White-fronted Geese and a single Pink-footed Goose, these gave me another 2 year ticks.
Crappy phone scoped Geese
1 of the White-fronts - honest....
I should maybe give up with this photography lark - in my defence though, my DSLR seems to have a faulty sensor and my phone got stolen so I'm using a crappy Samsung Fame on which the camera is dire...
On the way back to the car I found 3 male Goldeneye, dapper birds and made up for missing the Smew - which was latter reported as present
Goldeneye
This evening we visited friends in Cheltenham so I took the opportunity to nip to Pitville Park to look for the Dartford Warbler which has been there for some time now. I left it too late though as it was already past dusk so I failed to find it. I did manage some great views of a pair of Stonechat though so that was nice. I had to mess around with the camera a lot with the sensor being knackered, this is the best I could manage.
Stonechat
Stonechat
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