Abberton Reservoir twitching Canvasback

     As per usual on my journey back and forth from Paris, I stopped in to see my good friend David Darrell-Lambert and we spent the day birding together around London. Our destination of choice was Abberton Reservoir, a large water body in Essex that at the time of our visit hosted a good number of interesting species, including a potential world tick with the long-staying Canvasback.

  We arrived mid-morning and headed first to the Billets Farm viewpoint from where the Canvasback was seen. Unfortunately a strong backlight, blustery conditions and the flocks of ducks being distant meant that we were unable to spot the bird during this first visit. However, it was not a complete bust as were able to pick out a distant drake Smew.

  Next we continued around to St Andrews Church Viewpoint, which had the benefit of being with the light but the birds on the reservoir were distant. From here there had been a pair of Lesser Scaup and a small group of Greater Scaup but again we were not able to pick them out as we filtered through the distant flocks of birds. A Sand Martin flying overhead was the highlight of this location, my first Hirundine of the year.

  Moving on, we next stopped at the Layer Breton Causeway, where there had been a flock of 12 Greater White-fronted Geese. Finally we had some luck, with the birds showing nicely in a field at the side of the road. Also at this location we had a small group of Spoonbills, as our day began to turn a corner.

  Now early afternoon, we headed back to the Billets Farm viewpoint, where our visit immediately started well with a flyover Great Egret. We continued scanning the birds and eventually one of the other birders present managed to pick out the Canvasback from a very distant group of Pochards. It was extremely difficult to keep track of however, with the bird sleeping most of the time, whilst the plumage features we could see changed with the variable conditions. Not a classic bird to have twitched!

  To round out our day, we tried once again to see the Lesser Scaups, except this time we chose to view from the Lodge Lane viewpoint. Once again, the birds were very distant from here, but after much scanning we finally managed to pick out both Scaup species. The flock then had the discourtesy of flying around, so we had to once again filter through the flock for the birds. At this range, distinguishing between these two Scaup species was not an easy prospect, but we did manage to find them both. The highlight from this section however was a nice close flyby Peregrine and two Little Gulls over the water!

  After a very satisfying day, we headed back to London, with all the birds in the bag. My train that evening took me back to Halifax.