High Rid

I wanted to go a little farther afield today so I decided to go for a visit to High Rid Reservoir, the thinking being that it won't be overly busy (it wasn't) and I might strike lucky with something different (I didn't). Still, it's worth a go — if you don't go and look, you don't get to see.

The reservoir was very quiet. There were four families of mallards dabbling round the margins — two with nearly full grown ducklings, two with ducklings barely a couple of weeks old. Out in the middle of the water there was a raft of a couple of dozen tufted ducks, including a couple of drakes who were determined that the mating season wasn't over.

Mallard

There were a couple of dozen lesser black-backs, some drifting overhead but most taking their turns to land on the reservoir for a wash and a drink. Black-headed gulls drifted in in dribs and drabs and there singles of herring gull and common gull.

I took care to keep scanning the water margins (I was sort of hoping for a common sandpiper) but aside from mallards there was just a couple of juvenile pied wagtails.

Juvenile pied wagtail

A kestrel flew low over and a buzzard put the wind up the woodpigeons up the hill. Prize of the day was the great black-back that cruised over the ridge of the hill and set off southwards towards Rumworth Lodge.

Warblers were unsurprisingly thin on the ground: a chiffchaff singing from the gardens on Fall Birch Road, a blackcap on the golf course across the road, a whitethroat singing in the bushes on the hill and a willow warbler singing from the trees by the little pond by the reservoir.

A short, quiet walk over a muggy lunchtime and a nice breeze to take the edge off the heavy weather.