The first winter drake Ring-necked Duck, that I was party to finding back in December 2020, is still staying faithful to a small lake, called Home Lake, at Staunton Harold Hall on the Leicestershire/Derbyshire border and only a mile or so from home. The species is a major rarity to my home county of Derbyshire, with less than 20 previous records.
I paid it another trip a few days ago and as the lake was still three quarters frozen, it allowed me to get a little closer to it and obtain some much better photographs.
The Ring-necked Duck is now a fairly regular visitor to Britain from North America. There are often reasonable numbers that over-winter in the UK. In the second photograph you can just see the rusty coloured neck ring from which the bird gets its name. It is not often on show and a better name for the bird would be Ring-billed Duck!
