4 April 2024 - Hollingworth Lake

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Common Scoter, Sand Martins, Willow Warbler.

Cool, overcast & dull, very slight drizzle.  A dark duck mid water proved to be a male Common Scoter on investigation.  Quite a distance away from this bird was another bird which I first took to be a grebe, but was in fact a female Common Scoter.  Odd that they were both present but so far apart.  As I was scanning, 6 Sand Martins went low over the water, roughly NE.

I carried on and saw my first Swallow - hawking over the fields to the left of the road close to the Nature Reserve.  It soon disappeared though.  Just before the hide, a Willow Warbler was in full song at the top of a tree by the path. There was just a single female Goosander on the reserve.  From the Pavilion cafe, the two Scoter had joined forces and were typically distant in the middle of the water.  When I reached the bushy area just before Bib Knowl valley wall, another Willow Warbler sang.  So it's definitely spring, though it doesn't feel like it.
 

Common Scoter, 1/640 sec, f/7.1, 500 mm, ISO 2000