With only a few hours to spare on Sunday morning, the three of us head up the M25 to visit Staines Reservoir in the hope of meeting up with the Lesser Scaup. We arrive around 8 am and park not far from the entrance.
The Scaup is visible as soon as we arrive, a birder put us onto it but it's not a great view, so we head up the ramp and join a group of eight others.
It's not much of a better view, the bird is asleep most of the time we were there. It swims with a large group of Pochards but is easy to pick out of the group. It's a grey old morning so no real photos of the Scaup at that distance.
We didn't hang about too long as we wanted to pop up to Lemsford springs for the Jack Snipe. When we arrive we find the gate has been left open as a lot more people want to visit and they only have 4 keys it makes sense to just leave it open. We go to the second hide and find one of the three Jack Snipe immediately. It's on a small mound with a Common Snipe, allowing great views of the two species alongside each other.
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| The Lesser Scaup over the left side. |
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| Lemsford Jacksnipe |
We eventually found all 3 Jack snipe in front of the hide.
The warden is in the hide and gives us the story of one of the 14 Green Sandpipers that keep returning here, one is 12 years old and is the oldest one in the world and they tracked it flying to Norway in 24 hours and finding an old nest to roost in. He also told us one of the Little Egrets is the most recorded in the world with 600 reports. He has been the warden here for years and is very interesting to listen to.
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