Great visit to Shustoke Reservoir today where I certainly picked the right morning as it was more like a sunny day in May than the middle of November.
Highlight of the day was seeing a small flock of Meadow Pipit feeding along the waters edge in among the bushes that are now dying back, they also had both Pied and Grey Wagtails for company, it was great observing them until an unrestrained dog scared them off !
Not much to report on the water other than there were a good number of Mute Swan, Great Crested Grebe, Coot, Tufted Duck and Mallard.
Surprisingly the trees around the reservoir were very quite apart from the odd small Tit and Finch flock.
Birds seen today were, Buzzard, Kestrel, Meadow Pipit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Dunnock, Wren, Robin, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay, Blackbird, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Pied Wagtail, Grey Wagtail, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Mute Swan, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Moorhen and Coot.
Great visit to a mean and moody Kingsbury Water Park this morning with not a single ray of sunshine in sight but that didn't make the visit any less enjoyable.
Various birds were present in large numbers such as lot of mixed Tit and Finch flocks as well as the following (numbers are the best guess as they were spread around the lakes I visited) c.100 Cormorant, c.50 Little Egret, c.50 Great Crested Grebe, c.50 Shoveler, c.50 Starling, c.50 Greylag Goose, there was also a bird I can't identify which was very similar a female Goldeneye with the white markings at the rear, there were three of them and I can only think they are some type of hybrid, sadly because of the weather conditions and how far away they were i couldn't get a decent photo.
Birds seen today were, Sparrowhawk, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Wren, Robin, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Coal Tit, Chaffinch, Robin, Starling, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay, Collared Dove, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Cormorant, Little Egret, Grey Heron, Mute Swan, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Shoveler, Gadwall, Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Moorhen, Coot, Greylag Goose and Canada Goose.
In the garden for a few weeks there was hardly any House Sparrow activity because the Sparrowhawk was making at least one kill a day, the Sparrows then came back last week and so did the Sparrowhawk and took at least one bird per day for three days running and now the Sparrows have left again, I don't care what people say about nature, I've made the garden very Sparrow friendly and feed them diligently and now they are reluctant to come to the garden and it's just not the same without them and even when they do come back you're just waiting for the Sparrowhawk to return as well to take one of the poor little birds.
Now I have another problem as well, a Grey Squirell, not only is it happy with constantly wrecking my feeders it's now starting burying all the windfall apples I leave out for the Blackbirds, comically though it's taken to burying them whole in the plant pots, I do actually like to see them in the garden, just a pity they are so destructive.
