Saturday 18/01/2020 - Return to Abberton Reservoir
Following my recent successful trip to Abberton Reservoir we arranged for Jenny and Tim to come up this weekend to help me locate the reported birds which I missed on my last visit and to boost their year lists with as many new birds as we could find.
On a cold but beautiful morning we arrived at Abberton Reservoir at just after 8 a.m.and viewing the eastern side of the Layer de la Haye causeway nearest to the visitor centre we soon saw Goosander, Goldeneye and Smew before we were joined by the single swallow which was constantly flying past us as it went back and forth along the reservoir wall before it stopped for a rest on the sloping wall to our left.
We also saw the female Long tailed duck which I had missed last week.
On the western side of the road we found Pochard and later on after much searching through the many Tufted duck and Pochard we found a Scaup. We also had good views of a Great white egret as it flew down into the water's edge and waded about for a while.
After a couple of hours we went inside the visitor centre where we each had a tomato and basil soup
to keep us going and looked at the birds on the feeders outside the centre where a female Pheasant was standing on the fence so that it could reach the seed in one of the feeders rather than wait for it to be dropped by the smaller birds as they fed. The bright sun was showing off the colours of the Blue tit, Great tit, Chaffinch and Goldfinch so Tim and I spent a little while taking photos before we started walking along the trail inside the reserve to visit the hides. Here we found Skylark, Egyptian goose, Stock dove as well as a Black swan.
We also went to the other causeway, Layer Breton, which is about a kilometre to the west of the Layer de la Haye causeway and there we saw some White fronted geese.
Two other viewing points were near Billets Farm where we first saw a Black throated diver and then 4 Bewick's swans and some Snipe.
On the way from Abberton as we drove on a fruitless trip to Shut Heath wood where we could not find the concealed entrance due to misleading post code and satnav guidance we spotted a Sparrowhawk as it flew low down a country lane in front of us.
We were on our way to Hornchurch country park at about 4.15 to see the guaranteed Ring necked parakeets when we saw a small flock of them sitting in a tree at the side of the road but as Tim was in the back of the car and did not see them we drove round the block and Tim was able to see them as we drove past again which meant we did not need to visit the country park after all.
It was an excellent days birdwatching and we saw a total of 63 species of birds in all which included 16 new birds for Jenny's year list taking her to 100 and 9 new birds for my list taking me to 88.
A few photos from the day are shown below.
Andy.
On a cold but beautiful morning we arrived at Abberton Reservoir at just after 8 a.m.and viewing the eastern side of the Layer de la Haye causeway nearest to the visitor centre we soon saw Goosander, Goldeneye and Smew before we were joined by the single swallow which was constantly flying past us as it went back and forth along the reservoir wall before it stopped for a rest on the sloping wall to our left.
We also saw the female Long tailed duck which I had missed last week.
On the western side of the road we found Pochard and later on after much searching through the many Tufted duck and Pochard we found a Scaup. We also had good views of a Great white egret as it flew down into the water's edge and waded about for a while.
After a couple of hours we went inside the visitor centre where we each had a tomato and basil soup
to keep us going and looked at the birds on the feeders outside the centre where a female Pheasant was standing on the fence so that it could reach the seed in one of the feeders rather than wait for it to be dropped by the smaller birds as they fed. The bright sun was showing off the colours of the Blue tit, Great tit, Chaffinch and Goldfinch so Tim and I spent a little while taking photos before we started walking along the trail inside the reserve to visit the hides. Here we found Skylark, Egyptian goose, Stock dove as well as a Black swan.
We also went to the other causeway, Layer Breton, which is about a kilometre to the west of the Layer de la Haye causeway and there we saw some White fronted geese.
Two other viewing points were near Billets Farm where we first saw a Black throated diver and then 4 Bewick's swans and some Snipe.
On the way from Abberton as we drove on a fruitless trip to Shut Heath wood where we could not find the concealed entrance due to misleading post code and satnav guidance we spotted a Sparrowhawk as it flew low down a country lane in front of us.
We were on our way to Hornchurch country park at about 4.15 to see the guaranteed Ring necked parakeets when we saw a small flock of them sitting in a tree at the side of the road but as Tim was in the back of the car and did not see them we drove round the block and Tim was able to see them as we drove past again which meant we did not need to visit the country park after all.
It was an excellent days birdwatching and we saw a total of 63 species of birds in all which included 16 new birds for Jenny's year list taking her to 100 and 9 new birds for my list taking me to 88.
A few photos from the day are shown below.
Andy.
Great tit
Blue tit
Chaffinch
Goldfinch
Swallow
Pheasant
Long tailed duck (female does not have long tail)
Moorhen
Goldeneye
Bewick's swan
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