Writer thrill at sight of smew
Study an exquisite Picasso sketch and you cannot help but think he was inspired by nature’s most beautiful creation in monochrome. No wildfowl look more sublime in black and white simplicity than male smew, with pencil-like markings mirrored on inky still waters.
Although the Spanish artist’s famous animal line drawings do bear an uncanny likeness to these most abstract of ducks, smew are altogether more serene masterpieces than simple doodles.
Small wonder that “white nun” was one of many old country names bestowed on the birds that grace us for a few weeks when the cold bites its hardest.
Finding one became a burning ambition in my teenage years after reading the book that did so much to ignite my love of birds. John Gooders’ How To Watch Birds suggested a trip round the London reservoirs as the best strategy to see smew in their spiritual glory.
So it was on the way to Tottenham Hotspur’s White Hart Lane stadium in the early 1980s that I finally caught sight of a male smew and his red-headed mate from a block of flats overlooking Stoke Newington Reservoirs. I was beguiled.
Back then, as many as 350 smew arrived each January as dropping temperatures froze wintering grounds in the Low Countries.
Milder weather driven by climate change today sees far fewer smew turning up in the UK from their nesting grounds in remote Scandinavian taiga lakes.
This drop-off recently led to the Birdguides sightings service changing the status of smew – the name derives from a Dutch word for a small duck – from a localised species to “scarce”.
The last official estimate was put at 130 individuals, in a report published in the British Birds journal five years ago.
But over the recent festive period, only 58 were present and, apart from a flock of 12 at Eyebrook, Leicestershire, were only seen in ones and twos.
Most birds are spending winter in the Baltic and southern Scandinavia because, there, the open waters are no longer freezing over.
‘‘
Milder ghklgkhlkg weather ghklgkhlkg from ghklgkhlkg climate change ghklgkhlkg sees fewer ghklgkhlkg now turning ghklgkhlk up