Shustoke Reservoir.

Early morning trip to a coldish Shustoke Reservoir, it soon warmed up though with a bit of walking and the all important birding. 

Highlight of the day was seeing a pair of Great Northern Diver on the reservoir, unfortunately they were too far away to get a decent photograph but fortunately they were close enough to be identifiable and what a splendid pair of birds they looked. Also nice to see was a mixed flock of c.100 Siskin, Lesser Pedpoll and Goldfinch with the only downside being when a Lesser Redpoll appeared a few foot above my head trying with great difficulty to hang on to alder tree branch, straight away there seemed something wrong with the poor fella because it couldn't hang on properly with it's wings seeming to be a problem, then unfortunately the poor thing dropped to the floor and was scrabbling about on the floor and didn't appear to be able to keep it's eyes open so I approached it and tried to pick it up but it flew, not very gracefully, down on to the riverbank where I couldn't get near it even if I wanted to, I don't know what I'd have done if I'd have caught it but I couldn't anyway, I did actually observe it for about five minutes on the riverbank and it still looked like it couldn't keep it's eyes open, maybe it had been stunned by a raptor and just needed to time to recover or  maybe there was something really wrong with it but hopefully it was okay, my only other worry was that the flock was long gone. The other notable sights today was seeing a flock of c.100 Woodpigeon destroying the poor farmers crop and also seeing 7 Shelduck, 11 Goosander, 40 Great Crested Grebe and c.100 Pochard and Tufted Duck on the reservoir. 

Birds seen were Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Siskin, Lesser Redpoll, Dunnock, Robin, Wren, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Woodpigeon, Pied Wagtail, Pheasant (cock), Cormorant, Grey Heron, Mute Swan, Great Northern Diver, Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe, Shelduck, Goosander, Gadwall, Pochard, Pekin Duck, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Coot, Domestic Goose and Canada Goose.