Shustoke Reservoir.

First trip of 2017 was a lovely frosty and blue filled sky visit to the wonderful Shustoke Reservoir, it makes me laugh when I hear people running from their house to the car moaning it's cold, personally I think this time of year is great and as everyone should know that when it comes to birding and nature there's always something to see all year round.

Highlight of the day was first of all hearing and then observing a large mixed flock of Goldfinch and Siskin, I do love to see Siskins, a much underrated bird in my opinion, I would say there was approximately fifty birds in the flock, hard to tell though because they were spread out among four alder trees, it was also nice to see a pair of Nuthatch, which I could have easily missed if I hadn't first heard their tell tale call, further down from them was a small flock of Redwing.

There wasn't actually that many birds about at all today, in fact I've never seen so few birds on the reservoir as I did today, even fewer than on my last visit, I didn't even see a Mallard until half way around the water, saying that by the time I'd done a full circuit there were plenty of Mallard and Canada Goose present, the Canada Geese were also ominous by their presence apart from a pair half way around but they were unable to fly due to a severe case of angel wing, at least I fed them and the Mallards present plenty of bird seed which is obviously much better for them even though the I can't undo the damage done to them by people feeding them bread.

Birds seen today were, Siskin, Nuthatch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Wren, Redwing, Jay, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Pied Wagtail, Grey Wagtail, Pheasant, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Mute Swan, Little Grebe, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Mallard and Canada Goose.

Over the winter as well as the Grey Wagtail visiting everyday, I also have a male and female Blackcap coming everyday, they are partial to a bit of apple and scraps of fat and peanut that have dropped to the floor from the apple tree where are a lot of my feeders are located.