A visiting long-tailed duck

Thanks to the Rotherhithe and Beyond birdwatching blog for an udpdate about the birdlife at Canada Water and Surrey Water.  He/she (I don't know the name of the person who runs the blog) has some lovely photographs of a long-tailed duck. 

http://rothandb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/still-she-stays-in-rotherhithe.html

My knowledge of bird life is distinctly ephemeral, but the RSPB website, describing the long-tailed duck rather charmingly as "a small, neat sea duck" says that these are migratory visitors to the UK during the winter, when they are usually to be found north of Northumberland, and that they are also passage migrants (birds which stop for a few days at a location en route from one place to another).  So she is a rather unexpected visitor to the area, but a very welcome one.