Saturday, 23 April 2016

FARMOOR RESERVOIR WALK

A forty minute drive over to Farmoor Reservoir this morning for a walk in the spring sunshine on the hunt for a yellow wagtail! 
A northerly breeze made the trek across the causeway rather chilly, but it was quieter and warmer once I had dipped down onto the countryside walk route to circuit the northern section of the reservoir.  A good variety of birds seen but  no yellow wagtail. After arriving back at the car for a flask of coffee, I decided to return to the area where the yellow wagtails are known to linger, and after seeing nothing I was on the way back to the carpark when I saw a bird, brownish in colour fly across the path from the causeway and land within the neighbouring water treatment works. As it had the look of a wagtail in  flight I decided to go back and  investigate and  finally through my binoculars there it was.. a yellow wagtail!  Sadly too far away  to photograph but a tick on my year list!
Farmoor reservoir  northern section, looking north

.. and south

great crested grebe

common terns

sedge warbler

cowslips



Then route I took, which included a brief stop at a nature reserve hide produced the following birds:

robin, blackbird, dunnock, wren, song thrush, starling, magpie, wood pigeon, kestrel, blue tit, great tit, blackcap, chiffchaff, mallard, great crested grebe, black headed gull, common tern,  martins (probably sand martins), mute swan, canada goose, greylag goose, pheasant (heard) , house sparrow, coot, grey heron, sedge warbler, meadow pipit, pied wagtail, yellow wagtail. Also some waders that I couldn't identify from a distance. probably common sandpiper and dunlins ( I looked another blog entry for Farmoor reservoir this morning to check!) 




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