Elton Reservoir

Little egret

It was a fair, and surprisingly mild, December day so I had an afternoon stroll round Elton Reservoir.

A couple of the feeders have returned to the tree by the car park so I spent a while watching to see what came in to them, which today turned out to be mostly great tits, blue tits, chaffinches and house sparrows with a few reed buntings. I've no idea how the feeders get put up there, nor how they get filled, unless they use one of those big poles with a hook on the end we used to have to use to open the windows at school. Neither do I know who does it, good on them whoever they are. A lot of noise and the twittering flight of a charm of goldfinches accompanied a sparrowhawk being chased off by a couple of carrion crows.

The small canal on the right is the good path to the creek

There were a few dozen each of mallard, tufties and coot in the bight by the sailing club. All told there must have been more than a hundred and fifty or more black-headed gulls about. Further out in the water I spotted a couple of female goldeneye and a great crested grebe. I walked over towards the creek, the good path was awash with water and got progressively worse the further along I went. A little egret was feeding under the trees along the creek and the first-Winter scaup was feeding and preening at its mouth. The scaup's well into its moult now with a lot of adult feathers on its back and mantle.

First-Winter drake scaup

Given the state of the good path (I was top of the boots deep in mud) there was no way I was going to assay the muddy track further on. I turned back and walked down to the sailing club. The little egret flew over and spent a few minutes feeding with the coots before flying off.

The path along the Southern margin of the reservoir was also wretched. Looking over the water I could see more great crested grebes, a group of goldeneyes including a rather fine male, half a dozen redhead goosanders with a salmon-pink male and a couple of dozen teal loafing under the far bank. There were yet more black-headed gulls, with more coming in to roost, together with half a dozen lesser black-backs and singles of common gull and herring gull.

I walked down to the canal. A male kestrel flew in and sat on the telegraph line above my head. It wasn't at all bothered by my reaching for my camera, we were both extremely bothered by a carrion crow that dived in and drove it off before I could get a picture.

Elton Reservoir

I walked into Radcliffe for the tram home. There were a lot of starlings and woodpigeons about, which was sort of reassuring.