Red-crested Pochard and Smew at Newchurch Common 11th January 2017

An expected dry day before some very stormy weather was an opportunity to add to my 2017 year list with the reports of a drake Red-crested Pochard and a redhead Smew at Newchurch Common. As before, we parked at the end of Novscotia Lane and walked down the track rather grandiosely named Overdale Lane.

We dropped down to the pool on the left which had a large number of female Goosanders as well as a Pochard and some Wigeon and Tufted Duck. This wasn’t really our target so we followed the fishing lake round until it cam up at the anglers’ car park. From here wer crossed over into the little strip of land that juts out into the main lake on the other side of the path.

We started to scan the far side of the right of the lake (as seen from the path) and I thought I might have got a glimpse of something different but, before I could really get going, the rain started to fall. I quickly took a look in the other direction hoping that I could get some cover under the trees and I got a view of the drake Red-crested Pochard but through a heavy drizzle of rain. This got so bad that our optics were pretty much useless as they had to be wiped every few seconds.

After about fifteen minutes we decided that it was hopless. Horizontal driving rain was drenching us and we couldn’t see the other side of the lake so we decided to give up. We started walking back down the path and the rain eventually eased. We stopped to look from a vantage point inside the woods about a third of the way back up the path and, as suddenly as it had started, it started to lighten up until we could get really nice views and the sun came out again.

We decided we had come to far to give up now so we walked back to our previous vantage point. We still could not find the Smew so we decided to have a look at the Red-crested Pochard again. When we did, the Smew bobbed up quite near it and then disappeared immediately. A bit of patience saw it come up and stay up and we even got ciews of both birds in the scope at the same time. Our drenching seemed worth it now and happy with a couple of good birds, we left, stopping off at the Spinner and Bergemot for a drink on the way home.