14th February 2014 - Draycote Water

The annual trip up to the Midlands for the Warwick University Real Ale Festival was upon us again and we headed up to Leamington.  The first full day we had there was dedicated to Draycote Water, a great reservoir near Rugby.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't anywhere near as dedicated as we were and the rain was so fierce it was painful.  Excellent.

Goldeneye

Goosander

We could barely see a few metres ahead let alone use optics for most of the walk, so it's impressive we got anything on the list at all, let alone 36 species.  A great year lister as we only have seen them in two other sites (Dungeness RSPB and Rutland Water) were Tree Sparrow, which have a dedicated feeder at the site.  Running back on the final stretch to the car I spotted the Great Northern Diver that had been around for a while, happily bobbing around in the torrential rain.    

Great Northern Diver

Trip list: 36
Year list: 92
Lifers of year list: 3