Twitchers flock to duck sighting

More than 100 bird watchers have flocked to a stretch of water in south Derbyshire to catch a glimpse of an extremely rare species of duck.

The Surf Scoter is rarely seen outside North America but has been spotted on Foremark Reservoir.

The black-feathered bird has an oddly-shaped, multi-coloured bill and usually lives along the coast.

Wayne Ball, of Severn Trent Water, said: "It's put [the reservoir] on the map as a site for such birds."

Mussel eaters

"It's very nice to have the bird sighting here which is the first sighting in Derbyshire.

"Only four have been spotted inland in the UK , and there's been less than 20 records in the UK," he said.

The Surf Scoter is also known as the Goggle-nose or Horse-head Coot and has a pronounced hump on the top of its bill.

Hundreds of thousands of the birds spend the winter in the coastal waters off British Columbia in Canada.