I was on grandparent duty
today and after dropping the grandchildren off at school I was required to pick
them up again at 15:15. As I was at my
daughter’s I decided I would visit Kelham Bridge to hopefully catch up with
Willow Tit, which I have only seen once this year.
I arrived at Kelham Bridge at
around 09:25 and made my way to the first hide, where there is a feeding
station that Willow Tits usually visit.
There was plenty of food in the three feeders but I was surprised to find
no birds, as they are usually alive with birds.
As sat and waited and eventually a Grey Squirrel made a brief visit,
followed shortly afterwards by a Great Tit but neither stayed very long and I
suspected that something had spooked them.
Two Great Tits then made several brief visits and then I saw a Willow
Tit but it was reluctant to visit the feeders at first but it did
eventually. I had some nice views of a
single bird but there were very few other birds visiting the feeders. The only bird of note on the pool was a
single Snipe.
Willow Tit
Willow Tit
As I moved along the track to
the next hide a Sparrowhawk flew along the path in front of me and on entering
the hide I had fortunately opened the front and side flaps as a Kingfisher then
took a fish and flew to the to the right of the hide. As I glanced out of the side flap it was
sitting on perch just a couple of meters away and remained whilst I fired off a
few shots before it disappeared.
Kingfisher
Kingfisher
I had heard a couple of
Cetti’s Warbler call and on seeing a small bird fly across the water into the
reeds where I had watched the Kingfisher I had a nice, if brief, view of a
Cetti’s before it disappeared into the reeds.
With just a couple of Little Grebes and a few Moorhen on the pool I made
my way back along the track towards the car.
As I made way back along the track
there appeared to be more birds and I had several Redwings and two Fieldfares
fly over. There was a mixed party of
Blue and Long-tailed Tits in the bushes and I could hear a Goldcrest and whilst
trying to see these I noticed a single bird perched on top of a bush, which
turned out to be a Lesser Redpoll.
With still some time to kill I
decided I would go to Swithland Reservoir and parked on the road overlooking
the southern end of the reservoir. I was
surprised to find few wildfowl on the water as there had been a lot during my
last visit. There were a few Mute Swans,
Gadwall, Teal, Mallard and Tufted Duck and two Shoveler. There was also two Little Egrets but little
else and so I drove to the northern section.
I stopped briefly at the
western end of the dam where I heard a Nuthatch before parking at the eastern
end of the dam. The water level was
quite low and this had attracted twenty Little Egrets and there was also
seventy-six Cormorant, which is a good number for this site. I was hoping to Raven during the visit and
one performed several times during my stay and a Sparrowhawk and Buzzard also
obliged. Steve was also present and
whilst taking we saw three Jays and a Grey Wagtail and thirty-two Fieldfare and
a Lesser Redpoll flew over.
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