Gone but not forgotten

Whilst the great northern diver may have last been seen on Sunday the 17th it would apparently have not gone far - Erich has the low down on the apparent re-appearance of the bird at Hornsea Mere - alomg with the ring-necked duck which has ambled back down to High Eske again on his blog here.  So there is always a chance of re-occurence - that said we've has some great pictures of the bird from the weekend - thanks to Roy Vincent for these:

And also Alan Wrightson:

And this one courtesy of HVWG too:

Roy also captured these of some of the other stars of the reservoir at the moment - a fine drake pintail:

And the now showy goldeneye:

The red head smew was still present today on Watton NR, and up to two pink footed geese was present too there most days.  John Prentice recorded 24 barnacle geese there on Monday and the nest box team a male marsh harrier on Tuesday.   Martin recorded a welcome mediterranean gull on the roost on Sunday evening after a pretty dry spell for interest - along with two adult lesser black backed's - the start of spring?  Perhaps indicated too by 5 shelduck now on site and the return of the oystercatchers on Saturday.  Hopefully the willow tit in the woods is there to breed too.  Steve Routledge recorded the final scaup sighting along with a nice flock of redpoll on Saturday - pictures on his blog here.  An otter sighting from last Friday too - hunting for 30 minutes on Watton NR.