An early-ish visit on a chilly but nice and sunny morning. Most of the birds seemed to be gathered in a single flock working their way around the edge of the woodland surrounding the western side of the nature reserve. Long-tailed tits were numerous and noisy, in amongst them were smart looking willow warblers in fresh plumage ready for their migration south of the Sahara. A pair of marsh tits fed higher up in an ash tree, where a spotted flycatcher also showed itself, making a few characteristic flights out of the canopy to snap up small insects.
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| view looking east, wild bird crop in foreground |
Moving on around the hedgerows were several blackcaps, whitethroats and a family of bullfinches. I watched as a whitethroat fed delicately on the individual nuggets of berry that make up the whole blackberry fruit.
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| common blue |
In the wild bird strip some lovely flowers of corn marigold made a great subject for the camera.
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| corn marigold |
Leaving the nature reserve and heading back through the golf course to my car, I disturbed a kingfisher from the golf course lake.
In the evening, a quick visit to Grimsbury was rewarded with a family of common terns, an adult and two juveniles. Both the juveniles had metal rings on their legs.
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| one of the two young common terns |
A couple of grey wagtails graced the concrete shoreline. The dunlin and common sandpiper are still in residence. No swifts at the reservoir but I saw a single bird over Banbury. They are very few and far between now.
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| yellow wagtail feeding amongst cattle grazing in the field next to the reservoir yesterday |
These photos of swallows were taken at Grimsbury Reservoir yesterday evening in great light.
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