Edgbaston Reservoir.

 A dead tree where a Great Spotted Woodpecker chick is nesting.

The tell tale signs of Woodpecker activity found upon the ground and on top of the nettles where the Great Spotted Woodpecker chick is nesting.


The planned trip to Edgbaston Reservoir went ahead in what turned out to be a gloriously hot sunny day. The difference in the water levels from this and my last visit back in early January was quite staggering, if you look at the post from then and now the transformation is quite unbelievable, the second picture from that post and the sixth from this post are taken in the exact same place, in fact according to one of the locals, they've never even seen the reservoir so full in over thirty years, the water was actually lapping over the edges in places. 

It was also great to go back to the reservoir in all it's colourful splendor, plenty of greens, browns and plenty of wild flowers and even plenty of weeds, which do get a bad press but in the proper environment they do look nice and serve their purpose in the ecological chain.

Highlights of the day was seeing the Reservoir nice and full, the Great Spotted Woodpecker feeding the noisy young chick plenty of grubs and seeing my first juvenile Blackbird of the year, very underrated is the Blackbird, I personally think they are a great bird. It was great too see plenty of Moorhen because you don't always see that many here, especially when the water levels are low, which certainly wasn't the case today. 

Birds spotted were, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Song Thrush, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Wren, Chaffinch, Robin, House Sparrow, House Martin, Blackbird, Carrion Crow, Woodpigeon, Feral Pigeon, Mute Swan, Great Crested Grebe, Moorhen, Coot, Mallard and Canada Goose, plus the following chicks juveniles, Great Spotted Woodpecker (1), Blackbird (1) and Coot (7) finally the following nesting waterfowl, Great Crested Grebe (2) and Coot (11).