Myrtle Magic and Silky Smew

This was a great day out - with a special lifer and a duck I've been trying to track down all winter! I drove straight to the main site - just over two hours - but then spent a good five minutes standing around like a fool in the middle of a housing estate looking for FBA (fellow birder assistance). It all seemed very odd. Eventually, from a stairwell door emerged someone who I took to be a local resident: "Are you wanting to see the birdie? It's just through here..." I thanked him (apparently he was the one who'd found it) and stepped into the block of flats wondering what on earth I was walking into. A few more steps further inside and through another door and the scene changed to something more familiar: other birders lined up looking into someone's back garden. And moments later, there it was: an astonishing and very rare Americano, my first ever Myrtle Warbler. The rest is history: I spent the next couple of hours trying to get the best shot I could (not that easy given the bird's frenetic behaviour - and the fact that every time I tried to get a shot, something would be in the way - clothes' line, washing on the line, fence, pole, branch, leaf...) Anyway, I came away with a good number of keepers including the three below. Once I'd had my fill, I drove to the other side of Glasgow to catch up with a bird that is hard to pin down these days. But this one proved (relatively) easy, and before too long I was feasting my eyes on a gorgeous drake Smew. Despite it always being on the 'wrong' side of the loch, I did manage to get some nice images of this bird and others - Goosander, Goldeneye etc.