Saturday AM, seen two ducks about the size of pochards, one slightly smaller than the other, dull grey/brown plumage, but both sporting a “neat” deep brown head, sort of crew cut hair style and each with a single white edging to feathers tucked in over their backs , have had a look and thought a possible pair of mergansers, an item in this months Birdwatch lent me to think it may be this duck , though the picture shown [p78] indicates a longer hair to the nape of the neck, the pair i seen wore the head covering tighter than the picture also the bill was shorter and flatter, a picture on animalspot.net shows an almost identical bird , but the pair never had as much white on the back

Tuesday a.m. 2 female Scaup, 1 female Red-crested Pochard.

Saturday pm 3 Goldeneye 1 male 2 female, Scaup 2 female, good numbers of Pochard, Tufted, G.C.Grebe, and hundreds of Coot.

Saturday morning, a collection of around 10-14 male and female goosander, in two groups one group flew toward the village and second group flew off toward Weare, this was around 08:15 am

3 Scaup, female Red-crested Pochard & 2 Goldeneye this pm

Three Scaup, single female Red Crested Pochard and Grey Wagtail were the best this morning.

3-Jan-2016
An OK looking ad fem Scaup on Cheddar Res. this afternoon together with a juv hybrid that has a ‘tufted type’ all black bill-tip. Also a fem Red-cr Pochard and 6 Goldeneye.

Great Northern Diver still present on a brief visit this afternoon, but couldn’t see any Red-crested Pochards.

The juvenile Great Northern Diver found by yesterday’s field meeting still present late afternoon today, between the Cheddar tower and the sailing club. Also 11 Red-crested Pochards (one a really odd, ‘leucistic’ bird) and 2 or 3 drake Goldeneye. 21 Goosander (8 drakes, 13 redheads) came in to roost late on. Lots of gulls in the roost but nothing unusual picked out in tricky light.

11 Red-crested Pochards and the Aythya hybrid still present today (per Bill Blake).