The first group are easy to see. Open water such as the meres around Ellesmere, Charles Sinker Fields at Whixall, Chelmarsh reservoir, Polemere reservoir, Priorslee, Venus Pool and Chetwynd Pool are all good places to try, taking binoculars and a telescope if you have one. Large flocks of wigeon congregate where shallow water and wet grassland offer enough aquatic plants, grasses and roots to feed them, the males showing off their handsome chestnut, pink, grey and white plumage highlighted with a yellow forehead. Their attractive whistling call is a real sound of winter for me.  

Goldeneye are seen in smaller numbers, arriving from Scandinavia and northern Russia. These are eye-catching diving ducks, the male black and white with a large, greenish-black head, white cheeks and yellow eyes. They can dive to around 4 meters for up to thirty seconds, foraging for crustaceans, insects and molluscs. You might see interesting behavior, as these ducks pair up on their wintering grounds, indulging in communal courtship displays wherein the males adopt a striking ‘head back’ posture before kicking up their feet and uttering a rasping double whistle which is audible to 1km distance.  

My personal favourites, though, are pintails. Who could resist their dapper good looks, the rich chestnut head set off by a clean white front which extends into a stripe curving up on each side of the head. They have elegant proportions - slim, long necked, with long, narrow, pointed wings and those wonderful long slender tails; a racehorse of a duck. They can sometimes be found in large numbers, with 294 recorded at Colemere in December 2000. I’ve never seen so many together myself, but was thrilled when a flight of 67 arrived at the Mere just in time for my Winter Wildfowl event in 2014.  

It was a privilege to represent SWT in The Boathouse for a few years – what an office! Every winter’s morning started with a scan of the Mere to see whether anything unusual had turned up overnight, either avoiding bad weather at sea or stopping over for a rest. Family groups of whooper swans called in to sleep and feed before continuing their travels, their distinctive outline picking them out from the local mute swans, and we were thrilled to have a young great northern diver in residence for a short while – normally the species winters off the coast. Unfortunately, in winter, it’s a dowdy-looking porridge coloured thing, quite unlike its spectacularly marked breeding self!  

Other occasional ‘blow-ins’ from the coast include some more real treats. Since 1955, the following have been recorded on The Mere: scaup, lesser scaup, long-tailed duck, common scoter, smew, red-breasted merganser, black throated diver and red throated diver. It might be a popular tourist destination, but it’s also a ‘service station’ for wildfowl, and well worth a spot of birding. Take advantage of good weather in January and head out for a look. These wetlands are vital for the survival of wintering waterfowl as well as their resident and breeding birds, and long may they continue so. Conservation of important habitats can impact even the most occasional of visitors.