A Evening at Longham

This evening I went over to Longham Lakes as I had heard about a bird that was on the lakes and I wanted to see it again as I saw one last year and of course it would give me a couple of points to my patch list score.
As I walked along the path between the lake I was buzzed by swifts you could hear the swish of there wings they were that close to my head at times it was incredible to watch. Reaching the west bank I noticed a male pheasant out in the fields, then my first Cuckoo of the year calling somewhere down by the River Stour.  After listing to the cuckoo  I started walking south along the west bank stopping every so often to scan the lake which had plenty of Tufted Ducks, two Shelduck and 11 Great crest Grebes, then bingo the bird I had been looking for and went to see was just off one of the solar panels in the middle of the lake a summer plumage Black-necked Grebe these birds are wonderful in their summer finery with black neck and head with fine yellow check feathers.
Just a bit further along the path I started to scan the gulls and to my surprise the male Mandarin Duck was out on the lake again, the gull consisted of 11 Herring Gulls, 2 Lesser Black backed Gulls and one Great Black backed Gull.
 The list now stands at 79 species and 84 points
Cuckoo
Black-necked Grebe

Male Mandarin Duck