Local birding has been pretty unrewarding lately. So this morning I decided to take a trip to Farmoor Reservoir near Oxford.
There had been a few birds there recently that I still needed for my flagging yearlist. I wasn't exactly sure how many were still there but it would make a nice change to look around a site that I had only visited twice before.
On leaving the car park, around the water tower no less than three Kingfishers were using the railings as fishing perches.
On the reservoir itself Coots, Tufted Ducks Cormorants and Great crested Grebes were present in good numbers but other than a few Mallard, Little Grebes and a couple of Goldeneye there wasn't a lot else.
A walk along the causeway produced scores of Pied Wagtails and a few Meadow Pipits.
I always find it surprising how wading birds allow closer approach on reservoirs than they would on the coast or any gravel pit. This Dunlin proving the point.
There had been a few birds there recently that I still needed for my flagging yearlist. I wasn't exactly sure how many were still there but it would make a nice change to look around a site that I had only visited twice before.
On leaving the car park, around the water tower no less than three Kingfishers were using the railings as fishing perches.
On the reservoir itself Coots, Tufted Ducks Cormorants and Great crested Grebes were present in good numbers but other than a few Mallard, Little Grebes and a couple of Goldeneye there wasn't a lot else.
A walk along the causeway produced scores of Pied Wagtails and a few Meadow Pipits.
I always find it surprising how wading birds allow closer approach on reservoirs than they would on the coast or any gravel pit. This Dunlin proving the point.
I had almost walked the whole of the way around F2 - the larger of the two reservoirs before I found one of the birds I was hoping to see, this very dapper Red-necked Grebe - my first in several years.
The last decent bird of the trip was a rather confiding Common Sandpiper.
