Will it ever cease? The rain that is. For days now the land has been blighted by continual rain, wind, mist, low cloud, you name it, bringing an all pervading gloom that has had me going stir crazy. Its been a real struggle to keep myself from sinking into a trough of despond and there seems no end in sight which is worst of all.
I struggle to find things to occupy me with this loss of birding opportunities. I am not the kind of person who readily takes to reading the paper, drinking coffee in a cafe or staring at nothing in particular out of the window but that is what it will come to if I am not careful.
It's a downward spiral. Even the arrrival of a pair of Smew at a local fishing lake only temporarily raised my mood. The lake, formerly free to wander around is now fenced off so one has to resort to view the birds from the road, through the fence and the branches of trees which is hardly the kind of birding solace I need at this point in time.
What to do?Some extraneous activity is required and in spite of the rain I made my mind up that if there was the slightest chance of the weather relenting even a little bit I was up and out.No question.
I always bang on about mindfulness, living in the moment, so how about administering some to myself .
Checking the forecast there appeared to be a slight relenting of the weather on the coming Saturday.It would still be rain showers but light rather than heavy. Clutching at this ephemeral straw I mulled over where to go birding.
Slimbridge WWT was tempting, it was relatively nearby but it would be a Saturday and the place would be heaving with people sheltering from the rain in cramped hides. Not at all enticing. What else would be around to raise my spirit? Nothing in Oxfordshire that's for certain. Farmoor Reservoir, my local patch still had its Common Scoter and female Greater Scaup but going to see them for the umpteenth time was hardly going to help
There was however the enticing prospect of a Red necked Grebe in Somerset, a good bird to see. Even better the bird in question was being promoted as possibly not a 'normal' Eurasian Red necked Grebe from Europe and western Siberia Podiceps grisegena grisegena but the subspecies P. g. holbollii North American Red necked Grebe colloquially called Holboell's Red necked Grebe which hails from North America and East Asia. The latter is not yet regarded as a full species but may well be in the future and as I have never seen this subspecies it definitely would get the birding juices flowing.
The grebe had been found at Cheddar Reservoir on the 25th January this year (Burn's nicht to us Scots) and had been present ever since, favouring the northwest corner of the reservoir by all accounts.
Now for a slight digression as I go into some technical detail
I am uncertain of this sub species current status in Great Britain.There is an old record that pre dates the BBRC (British Birds Records Committee) of one shot in September 1925 at Gruinard Bay by Aultbea, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland that apparently was accepted by the BOURC (British Ornithologist Union Records Committee) in 1928 as the first record for Great Britain. There has also been another more contemporary record of one seen in Quendale Bay, Mainland, Shetland in February 2024 which was later found dead and subsequent biometrics and genetic analysis indicated it was the subspecies P.g holbollii Holboell's Red necked Grebe but its acceptance is still in abeyance as those who sit in judgement require further measurements. One has to ask why? If and when accepted this will constitute the second record of Holboell's Red necked Grebe for Great Britain.
Outside of Great Britain it is also a rare bird with six being recorded from Iceland, two from Spain and one each from Norway, Sweden and France.
Whether the Cheddar Reservoir bird is a Holboell's or not is very much open to question and it is unlikely that it will ever be officially accepted based on a field description.
For what it is worth the main criteria for distinguishing the two sub species in the field are as follows:
Holboell's are meant to be larger than European Red necked Grebes, the bill looks longer, slimmer and more pointed, the neck is longer and thicker and the flanks are ash coloured and look dark as opposed to off white and pale. All of this is subjective and as we all know individual birds can vary. Weather and light conditions also have an influence on appearance and individual birds can vary in colour saturation, especially in wet weather such as when I viewed the grebe today.
Also there is the caveat that some live Hollboell's cannot safely be separated on plumage details and size from the European subspecies
The only reliable way to identify a suspected Holboell's is by taking measurements in the hand and/or undertaking genetic analysis, neither of which are currently possible for the Cheddar bird.
Personally I am not sure about this particular individual.Sometimes I look at my images and think it may be one and at other times I feel the opposite . Of course I want it to be a Holboell's but I lack experience, never having knowingly seen a Holboell's although I have seen seen plenty of the other European sub species.
Perhaps in the unlikely event of someone obtaining a feather from this grebe on Cheddar Reservoir there is a chance of genetic analysis which will establish its true identity. Fanciful I know but birders are ever resourceful.
I have never been to Cheddar Reservoir which lies between the village of Cheddar and the town of Axbridge both in Somerset. The reservoir is managed by Bristol Water and was completed in 1937, containing 135 million gallons of water within its two and a half mile circumference. Like many reservoirs it accommodates water related activities such as a yacht club, windsurfing and angling.It is also a designated SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) based on its wintering wildfowl.
I awoke on Saturday and casting a jaundiced eye out of the bedroom window regarded an all too familiar scene of rain and wind. So much for the forecast! It was obvious what the decision should be but such was my anxiety to get out and do something I abandoned common sense, never my strong point, donned wet weather gear and set course for the southwest.
Easier said than done as first comes the pothole lottery that comprises the road outside my house and demands careful negotiating by car otherwise it is likely to result in a costly exercise of replacing a tyre or worse a whole wheel. Then there is the flood halfway along the road to negotiate before making my way across the Cotswolds to join the M5.
My arrival on the motorway coincided with an apochryphal rainstorm causing the motorway to disappear in a miasma of spray from fast moving almost invisible vehicles. I went into survival mode, selecting the inside lane and putting on fog lights front and back as vehicles going far too fast hurtled past me or followed too closely.
Thankfully after thirty miles I turned off the motorway onto smaller roads and now revisited the pohole lottery, winding slowly uphill and through congested small villages until I came to an easily missable turn off which led to the reservoir.
At the bottom there was welcome free parking directly below the northwest corner of the reservoir's bank. I sat out yet another violent rain shower noting that the Met Office definition of light rain certainly did not accord with what I was currently experiencing.
Suitably waterproofed and with bins, camera bag and scope I ascended the steps to the top of the reservoir and joined a puddle strewn cinder track that is a public footpath and circumvents what is an impressively large reservoir.
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| The valve tower in the northwest corner of the reservoir, the area the grebe favoured |
I was now in the northwest corner of the reservoir basin and encountered a departing birder who told me the grebe had been showing well just beyond the valve tower I could see about a hundred metres further along the edge of the reservoir wall.
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You should have no problem. It's about twenty metres off the wall by the tower and has been there for at least the last thirty minutes and he pointed in the direction.
Thanks
I made for the valve tower, passing some very wet and cold anglers just as another huge grey cloud deposited a wind driven, stinging rain shower on me and everyone else. It continued relentlessly for ten minutes, stopping me in my tracks and even my waterproofs began to show signs of surrender.
Once the rain had eased I made my way to the valve tower and scanned the churning waters through water dripping bins.
I saw a large grebe bouncing amongst the waves
Aha! There it is.
I looked closer
It was a Great crested Grebe
I walked a short distance beyond the valve tower and there was another grebe swimming offshore.
Holboell's Red necked Grebe I presume. Pleased to meet you. I muttered with palpable relief
I got my camera out from its case just as another rain shower hit.There was no hiding place so I stood as wind and rain battered me and put the camera back in its bag pronto. The grebe disappeared in the rain and gloom. Eventually the shower passed, the sky lightened and there was the grebe still relatively close in, riding the choppy waters and I got my camera back out and took a few images.
My scope was not needed and as the grebe look settled I decided to return my redundant scope to the security of my car boot and on getting back to the valve tower found the grebe had gone. I scanned and scanned but it was nowhere to be seen. I decided to walk right around the vastness of the reservoir in the hope of finding it somewhere else.
It was a daunting prospect and it was only as I walked and was regularly and successively battered by oncoming rain showers that I realised there was another car park on the other side of the reservoir I could have driven.Too late to do anything about it now.
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Even in the foul weather there were people taking a walk or jogging around the reservoir, even including dog walkers, something that is not allowed at my local Farmoor Reservoir.
I had been told by a local birder that on the far side of the reservoir where there was another valve tower and it was more sheltered from the wind I would find three Greater Scaup and two Black necked Grebes in amongst the numerous Coots and Great crested Grebes massed there.I found the Scaup and a few Common Pochard and Tufted Ducks but could not find the Black necked Grebes.
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| Greater Scaup - two males and a female |
I continued walking around the reservoir and back to my original starting point and of course there was the Red necked Grebe back in its favourite northwest corner. Where had it been? No matter it was back and I made the most of it as it rode the waves. Almost un-noticed the rain had cleared and the light improved considerably and to such an extent I could now achieve some half decent images of the grebe as it faced into the wind and slid down into the wave troughs.
Eventually it seemed to tire of the effort of swimming in the rough water and with a short run up took to the air and the mystery of where it would disappear to was solved. It flew low into the wind, across the reservoir to join the coots and grebes in the calmer water over by the other valve tower
After its departure I checked my images on the back of the camera and was content with the result. I had been here for two hours, walked two and a half miles and been soaked by the rain and battered by the wind but I was happy if a bit tired.
My impromptu excursion to Cheddar Reservoir had done the trick and I felt much the better for it.
Now if only it would cease raining.
