FARMOOR

My choice yesterday was to visit Farmoor Reservoir where there is always something interesting to see. There are often waders on the shoreline alongside the causeway which separates the two reservoirs and today I was looking for sanderlings in particular.  I started walking across the causeway, there was a moderate breeze but it was not particularly cold and the sun occasionally came out from behind the clouds making it feel quite warm. Great crested grebes and coots were on the water but there was nothing in the way of waders until just before I reached the far end when I picked out some small black shapes at the edge of the water,  through my binoculars. As I approached I could see they were slightly different coloured, a dunlin and a sanderling maybe? However, the darker bird didn't have the traditional 'V' shape on its back that a dunlin had, so I concluded that they were both sanderlings, with one more advanced into summer plumage. They were both very confiding birds, allowing me to sit on the reservoir wall and photograph them as they contentedly kept running in and out of the water in search of food just below me. After watching them for a while, I took the path down to the pinkhill nature reserve and hide. I noticed the security lock had been removed and you were now free to enter without using a code. I heard reed warblers from the reeds and a cuckoo in the distance but with nothing else of note decided to take a walk alongside the River Thames which passes through the reserve. The sun had more or less disappeared but it was still warm enough for a few dragonflies, and I found my first four spotted chaser in the dragonfly pond, and a banded demoiselle along the river. 

Returning along the causeway, there was now a party of swifts passing too and fro over the causeway, sometimes at head height. Also a flock of house martins, noticeable by their white rumps.  As time was getting on, I decided to return to my car, with the intention of making a return visit to look for ringed plovers and turnstone which have been reported recently.