Drake Smew #11

On the greyest of days we popped over to the Marine Lake at Crosby to see if we could catch up with the drake Smew from the weekend. These uncommon birds visit the UK from Scandinavia and Russia between December and March. but only in very small numbers. This is the second winter running that we have had a drake on the Marine lake for a little while. 

As we pulled up to the carpark it started to drizzle so I knew that we wouldn't be very long if it didn't stop :(
We took a quick scan of the lake and didn't see anyone else looking for it so started a proper slower look through the binoculars. We eventually spotted our target bird in the top left hand corner - of course it was half way round - why would it be easy to get to ? :) 
We hot-footed it around the lake and got quite a bit closer - it was hanging out with a couple of goldeneye pairs. 
We watched it for a little while but all of a sudden, it decided to fly over to Seaforth again - but at least we saw it and as a bonus I managed an in-flight shot too. By the time we reached the car again, the drizzle had changed into proper rain so I was quite happy to leave.