Despite the dull weather I took a walk down Attenborough this morning.
Along with many of the usual suspects I saw a goldeneye, a snipe, a goldcrest and finally a female mandarin duck.

It won’t have flown from the orient but it is likely to be a descendant of ducks imported when it was fashionable to have exotic ducks on private ponds.
She is quite nicely marked but not a patch on the male. This is one I saw on another reserve.

I was pleased to see my first goosander of the winter early on in my walk

This is a female which unusually is more colourful than the male who is pretty much black and white.