Tolly and I had a great trip to the Yorkshire Water reserve Tophill Low on Saturday. This is a reserve is still an active water treatment works dating back to 1959.
We went to look at diving ducks, particularly pochard and a drake smew which has been spending the winter there. Smew is a species I dreamt about seeing as a child as I immersed myself in bird books. Until I joined a trip run by the Newbury Ornithological Club as a young teenager and saw one on gravel pits near Slough- a moment I have never forgotten. Since then I have seen them occasionally, especially when we lived in Wiltshire where they used to winter at the Cotswold Water Park.
A drake smew is simply sublime, mostly bright white with soft grey vermiculated flank feathers and black lines which look like they have been painted with a Chinese brush. It is a ‘saw bill’ duck which means it has a serrated bill to grip the fish it catches during very long dives. It was surprisingly camouflaged at times as the water looked very bright, itself vermiculated by lines of dark reflection.
We were very lucky- on a vast reservoir the smew had chosen to be close to the hide and it remained so for the duration of our visit. We really had time to take in the beauty of this bird, Tolly’s first, until eventually we had to leave. It always feels odd dragging oneself away from the sight of a rare and beautiful species such as a smew, it’s always much easier to leave when a bird flies away or the views are poor! I want to stay for more, but there must be a cut off point so we decided to leave after it began to rest with its head tucked into its back plumage.
The lovely name of smew is apparently a very old derivative of small. It is indeed a small duck when seen next to larger pochard and coot. Smew is such a lovely word to say! On account of the drake’s plumage (the females have a russet coloured head) smew are sometimes known as ‘white nuns’. The bright cold tones of a smew suit it well to a freezing winter’s day- always a memorable sight on some of the coldest and darkest days of the year.
We were so grateful for the opportunity to see this beautiful duck and the abundant pochard, goldeneye and tufted duck it was keeping company with. In addition we saw great crested grebes displaying and a water rail in the marsh hide. We’d thoroughly recommend the reserve if you haven’t been. Link here
https://www.yorkshirewater.com/things-to-do/reservoirs/tophill-low-nature-reserve/
A range of original watercolours(some of which feature in my blogs), prints and cards is available on my website https://jonathanpomroy.bigcartel.com/category/original-paintings-water-colour
Jonathan Pomroy 