Elton Reservoir

Sand martins, Elton Reservoir

The plans for taking advantage of the change in the weather were put to one side (I was shattered after a very bad night's sleep) so I opted for an afternoon stroll round Elton Reservoir instead. I decided to approach it by walking down to Withins Reservoir from Ainsworth Road but got off the bus a stop too early and had to take the footpath through Bradley Fold to Ainsworth Road. This turned out to be a very nice walk, accompanied by flocks of linnets and goldfinches, singing reed buntings and greenfinches and small clouds of swallows and house martins overhead.

Bradley Fold

The walk down to Withins was less straightforward: the last marker for the footpath was literally in the middle of a hayfield and I couldn't see any marker or gap in the fence that would either lead on this path or connect with the footpath on the other side of the fence. I keep telling myself I'm too old to be climbing fences…

Withins Reservoir was quiet save for half a dozen Canada geese, a singing willow warbler and a cock sparrow chasing dragonflies.

Elton Reservoir

Elton Reservoir was very low, with broad green expanses of boggy vegetation where there's usually a good depth of water. In a month or so this could attract some interesting waders, as it was there were a couple of dozen rather flighty lapwings milling about at the water's edge.

Common scoters (female second right), Elton Reservoir

Aside from a flock of thirty-odd Canada geese and four goslings all the waterfowl — mallards, mute swans and coots — were over at the sailing club end of the reservoir. All except a raft of seven common scoters keeping their distance out in the middle of the water. From a distance it was a collection of dark blobs but as I got nearer the pale cheeks of a female stood out clearly. In the end I could see that the rest were males though only two showed bright yellow bills. There's evidently a passage of scoters through the region, when I got home there were reports in from most of the big reservoirs and lakes.

A flock of a hundred or more sand martins hawked low over the water. Every so often some of them would land, presumably feeding on insects on the exposed "beach," leastways none of them were carrying anything when they flew off. I've never seen this before, maybe there was a mass hatching of something or other and the martins found it easier to go straight to source rather than flying round to catch the hatchlings.

The birds in the trees around the reservoir were mostly quiet, the exceptions being the willow warblers and reed buntings that sang at fifty years intervals and a couple of whitethroats in the hawthorn hedges. Even the big family of great tits working their way through the elderflowers by the creek were very quiet. 

I saw just the one robin, which darted into the undergrowth as soon as it spotted me. This is a better track record than I have at home at the moment, this year's post-breeding absence feels a bit more pronounced than usual.

The black-headed gulls have produced at least a dozen youngsters and they loafed at the water's edge with the adults. A few lesser black-backs sat on buoys out in the water. The height of the breeding season's over over as far as the gulls and waterfowl are concerned. It won't be long before the post-breeding roosts start building up again.

Elton Reservoir