Drift Reservoir

I revisited Drift reservoir yesterday to check for Great Crested Grebe sightings and Mating interaction,  Last year I followed a pair from mating through to bringing on two fledglings and am considering doing the same on a blog this year.

On arrival I could hardly ignore the resident male Manderin duck strutting its stuff  among the mallard looking like a mechanical Piccasso, for surely something other than nature came up with its design

Walking on along the margins I saw my first Great Crested Grebe diving for fish occasionally as it classically kept moving away from me,  To say that they are camera shy would be an understatement as I found out during last years attempts to compile a full photographic record of a summer season,

I decided to set myself up in the hide and try my luck with closer bird passes while keeping the front of my unhooded 500mm lens well back inside the viewing slots,  Around two hours later while keeping very still and quiet I had the reward of a Grebe fishing directly in front of the Hide for around five minutes which produced several portrait images including the two above and below,

Tufted Duck were also quite high in numbers with 20+ sighted fishing in random small groups around the reservoir,  Three Little grebes also came in close to the hid but the low light levels made it difficult to create a pleasing image,

Just before leaving the sound of two hundred or more very loud Canada geese landing on the water shattered the peace of the afternoon so after taking a few flight shots I headed back along the margins reflecting over a very pleasant afternoon at drift which was looking well managed and sporting healthy bird numbers