Little Egret, Scaup, Snipe, Kingfisher, Grey Wagtail, 4 Goosander
Couldn't sleep last night so was up at 4:30 waiting for it to get light. At about 7:15 it looked light enough to see, so went in the car to have a check over the water. Scanning the Canada Geese I noticed a fairly large-looking duck but it flew and I lost it. 4 female/imm. Goosander were about the best of the rest. I drove round to the Rowing Club car park and immediately noticed the same duck close to the jetty, although the light was directly against me. Thinking it might be a juv Scaup, I took some brief video before it flew off again, and went home to view the footage. I was pretty sure it was Scaup and sent a YouTube link to Simon who said he thought it looked good in terms of head shape and bill.
Imm. Scaup at the duck feeding point, 07:20 5 November 2016
Shortly after, received a phone call from Simon to say the bird was out in the centre of the water with Tufteds and did indeed look like a first-winter male Scaup, as it was showing some grey feathers on the scapular region.
I then went for a walk around the Lake, starting at the Beach hotel, since the sunlight was strong from the west. The bird was out in the middle with 7 Tufteds, as Simon had suggested, and I spent some time viewing and filming, but they all remained asleep. I decided to walk to the reserve and then try coming back to see if they'd waken up.
At the reserve, there were a few Teal, a Heron and one Snipe on the stones. I decided to walk to the Willows and then come back past Big Hedge with the sun behind me. As I reached the willows and scanned back over the reserve, I was amazed to see a Little Egret in full view, close to the Grey Heron. However, just as I was getting my camera set up, it flew and disappeared from view behind the trees.
Walking back to the hide and opening the door, I was somewhat taken aback to find the hide full of photographers, who'd all seen the Little Egret at close range! I stayed for some time and got good views of the Scaup, a Snipe on the spit, a Grey Wagtail and also the Kingfisher which was flitting back and forth with its mate.
Leaving the hide sometime later with Andrew Huyton, we scanned the reserve one more time and found a Green Sandpiper on the far bank, feeding away. Not a bad day's work!