Pitsford

A rare chance to visit Pitsford today in the company of Alan Shorrock and an opportunity to try out a recently purchased camera. Sadly the camera turned out to be a bit of a duffer but the res was OK.

Pitsford ducks.

We began by having a quick look at the nature reserve north of the causeway. There was a large number of ducks present with Pochards in particular present in good numbers. The drake Ring-necked was reported this morning (as indeed was the dratted one at Summer Leys) but we didn't manage to find it. Great White Egrets did show well with three birds feeding along the shoreline and there was also a Redshank.

Black-headed Gulls.

From here we took a walk on the southern side of the causeway where we hoped to catch up with one of the Great Northern Divers that have been here for a few weeks. Happily we found one close to the gorse bushes where we watched it on and off for at least half an hour. At first it spent its time preening and was easy to see but within a few minutes it had begun to feed and spent more time underwater becoming more difficult to view. Attempts to photograph it with my new camera were fairly dismal though that doesn't stop me from including an example here, needless to say I'll be sticking with my Nikon in future! It had begun to drizzle at this point and as Al had a lunch date we decided to head back to the car leaving the res to the joggers, cyclists and walkers.

Dire diver picture.