When news of a pair of local Smew reached me yesterday I was pleased to hear one of them was an adult male. Not rare but certainly scarce these wonderful clean cut ducks are from the arctic and the males, with their ice cool plumage, look as though they belong there.
He was always flighty and never came overly close but he put on a good show before flying off with his mate to the south east late morning.
The easterly winds coupled with sub-zero temperatures over Europe, has prompted a cold weather movement from the continent. The Norfolk coast is rife with Song Thrushes, Woodcock and Smew; no doubt all from Holland. Another invader from the Netherlands are Goosanders.
We stumbled upon a notable flock of 24 yesterday on a small boating lake. They were engaged in a feeding frenzy. At first I thought they were feeding on some sort of crustacean amid weed in the lake but photographs show they were pulling out small fish. I can’t ever remember seeing a larger winter flock.
Letter From Norfolk 