28th Feb 2018

Thanks to John for posting while I was away! I'm just catching up now, so hopefully I haven't missed much.

Philip Walker visited on Friday 23rd. In addition to John's post/sightings Philip also saw a few bits up at the Borrow Pit pool. There was four Little Grebes, six to eight Tufted Duck, a Peregrine flying over up the valley and a male Stonechat perched on the bullrushes.

On Saturday 24th Steve had a Little Grebe at the reservoir along with the now regular Stonechat and pair of Wigeon.

Dave Lowe and Tom Bedford travelled up on Sunday 25th in search of the Willow Tit, which they found, and also saw our first Marsh Tit of the year/winter. The two were associating with each other and could be our 'pair' that attempted to nest last year. Their visit produced some interesting comments on ID from Richard Broughton and Tom has written up their notes and Richards comments here. 

Monday lunch time John had four Redpolls in the woodland. The (a) Coot has returned, two Lapwing flew over and the very confiding Kestrel was around too. 

The cold snap appears to be causing a little movement of birds avoiding the harsher conditions elsewhere. Today before work John saw 31 Lapwing go over and there were 10 Tufted Ducks (7 drakes) at the reservoir and 15 Fieldfare in the cattle field. At lunch time he saw a further 29 go over, all south or south-east, and another 4 land at the reservoir in the evening. 

23rd Feb 2018

John: It is all pretty quiet at the reservoir right now as we experience the doldrums of winter. Spring is though gradually showing itself, with more and more signs that there is hope!

Still, there was at least something to look at, with both the pair of Wigeon and the 1st-winter male Stonechat seen on and off throughout the week.

There have also been up to 200 Black Headed Gulls roosting on the pontoon on several evenings. This produced the highlight of the week, with a German-ringed Black Headed Gull - AF400. Even more interesting, was that this bird has been seen by Gareth before, not this winter, but back on 5th November 2015! See here

This perhaps shows an incredible faithfulness to certain wintering sites and an interesting insight into how gulls move about.

This inspired me to get round to finding out the info of two other ringed Black Headed Gulls from back in October. I have already had a reply on one (2SKL), which was rung at Pitsea Landfill Site in Essex, by the North Thames Gull Group back on 3rd December 2016. See here

We're just going into a very cold spell over the next few days, so fingers crossed we get a bit of a change up of birds...perhaps some different wildfowl if we're lucky!

11th Feb 2018

There was obvious a bit of movement of Great Crested Grebes this week, as John saw eight on Monday but there was only four again by the end of the week. John also saw a pair of Wigeon on Tuesday and a Lesser Redpoll on Thursday. I assume the Wigeon were the same birds we saw on Saturday too, so they may have been lingering in the valley. Also on Saturday, I had a Peregrine go over, a Coot and the two Lesser Redpoll in the wood. On Sunday George Best saw the Willow Tit and the two Redpolls were in the wood still.

All photos courtesy and copyright of JFT

04th Feb 2018

It has been a pretty quiet week to be completely honest. Steve saw a drake Goosander on Thursday. This morning the Willow Tit was in the wood being fairly vocal and there were at least two Lesser Redpolls. The Stonechat is still along the western reservoir fence.