Today at Wimbleball Lake a female Goldeneye was associating with Tufted Ducks about halfway up the Upton Arm. This is possibly the same bird that was present at the end of last year. Also in the Upton Arm were 28 Goosanders and throughout the whole Lake 47 Goosanders split roughly evenly between drakes and females. This is an exceptional count for birds seen during the day, probably one of the highest ever. Normally highest counts are viewed at dawn or dusk from the dam wall as birds roost overnight, and either fly in towards dusk or start leaving around dawn to feed elsewhere on streams and rivers nearby. The only reason for this high count I can think of is that there was heavy localised rain yesterday which made it difficult for the birds to feed elsewhere. The highest count at Wimbleball was 120 birds at dawn on the 1st of January 2015 by me. This is possibly the highest count at a single site in Somerset. Numbers have declined since.

Also a Great White Egret was feeding actively near the bird hide late afternoon. This is only the 4th record for the Lake, and the first winter record.
Previous records are:
7th to 15th October 2002. Also first for Exmoor.
25th July 2018
14th to 31st July 2021
Also around the lake today, 1 little Egret, 49 Tufted Duck, 25 Coots, 56 Canada Geese, 9 Great Crested Grebes, 2 Little Grebes, 36 Cormorants, 45 Mallard, 1 Moorhen. 2 female Stonechats and about 6000 gulls to roost, mostly Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, with smaller numbers of Black-headed and Common Gulls.