Alert

The failure of Ocado to deliver the meat I was planning to use for a casserole, took R and me back to Stratford this morning. This was annoying, because I could quite easily have gone to the butcher's when we were there yesterday, and would have done if I'd thought of the casserole then rather than later, which would have saved us time and fuel today. On the other hand, if I hadn't happened to be hunting dragons at Lucy's Mill at noon today, I wouldn't have encountered this goosander, so... swings and roundabouts.

I first heard that there were goosanders on the Stratford stretch of the Avon on Wednesday, from the (very slight) birding acquaintance who chatted to me about the breeding success of the local kingfishers. He said that three goosanders had been spotted by the Old Tramway Bridge the day before, and that he'd seen two that morning down at Break Weir Lock, but I didn't have the time on Wednesday to go and look for them myself. I did look yesterday, but didn't find, and I wrote off the story as a Birders' Tale - both unfairly, since every tip the guy has previously given me has proved to be true, and unreasonably, given that I photographed a pair at Stratford Lock myself back in December.

Anyway, today I was hunting dragons, in horrible light - straining my eyes searching the reeds, and profoundly wishing that R was there to act as my spotter - when a disturbance on the water beyond the reed bed snagged my peripheral vision, and when I refocused, turned out to be this redhead goosander. A few seconds later there was a further disturbance, and two more appeared - all of them redheads, so either females or juveniles. Either is equally possible - or indeed, both - but this, I believe, is a female. I've always found goosanders difficult to photograph well, not least because they're usually too far away for detailed images, so I was delighted to be able to abandon the dragons and spend the next few minutes shooting these striking and elegant birds at relatively close quarters.