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!