Shustoke Reservoir.

Great visit to Shustoke Reservoir where it was lovely, crisp and cold with lush bright blue skies which in my opinion is proper winter weather.

I thought the day was doomed before it had even started when shortly after taking photos of the above robin in the car park I dropped my camera on the floor, worrying it hit the floor with such a thud that the memory card popped out of it's slot, strangely there appears to have been no damage sustained, which is quite amazing considering the sound it made when it hit the deck.

Today was one of the days when there's a mixture of both good and bad news to report and they are both from exactly the same location which is the area just to the right of the Fly Fisher's Pool as you enter from the direction of the reservoir, first the good news, this area has a great mixture of trees which attract a wide variety of birds, in this small area alone all of the following birds were spotted this morning, a flock of Siskin, Goldcrest, Treecreeper, Nuthatch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Robin, Dunnock, Wren, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Blackbird, Woodpigeon, Carrion Crow and Jackdaw, the bad news is that the River Bourne is going to be re-routed through this exact area to aid the fish which sounds great until you realise that this now means destruction of many of the trees and the immediate habitat, sadly none of the trees have 'Tree Preservation Order's,' even the trees the surveyors were marking the 'important trees' that will try to be saved will probably go, a lot of the trees that are now earmarked for felling are alder and ash which I pointed out were very important to feed the birds through the autumn and winter, sadly it fell on deaf ears, don't get me wrong, they are only doing their job but they were very unsympathetic to the habitat loss and knock on effect it will have for the birds and wildlife let alone the loss of yet more well established trees, as if that wasn't bad enough as I was told a lot of the trees 'will have to go' anyway because of getting the plant and machinery in and out of the location, as per usual I can't see this ending well for the wildlife, the work is due to take place in the next 1-2 years so if want to raise your objections/concerns then you have to contact Severn Trent Water who operate and 'maintain' the reservoir and the land, this project is totally down to them and not the fly-fishers.

It was a bit quiet on the water fowl front but at least the birds present were enjoying the sunshine and it was especially nice to see Teal, Pochard, Great Crested Grebe and Little Grebe as well as Mute Swan which you don't always see at this location.

Birds seen today were, Goldcrest, Treecreeper, Nuthatch, Siskin, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Wren, Robin, Starling, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Song Thrush, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Collared Dove, Pied Wagtail, Mute Swan, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Coot, Teal, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Mallard and Canada Goose.

When I was at the reservoir, in Coleshill and even in my back garden I've noticed House Sparrows checking out prospective or maybe even previous nesting sites, let's hope they raise as many young as they can as there's one thing for sure, you can never have too many House Sparrow's !