Across The Border Again

 Alan Shorrock and I made another hop across the border today with a short trip to Eyebrook Reservoir. Today's weather was cold for the time of year with a strong wind dominating proceedings while several rain showers also put in an unwelcome appearance.

Common tern and Great White Egret.

The Autumn wader migration is underway and we found a few species beginning with the first of three Green Sandpipers. A brace of Common Sandpipers were also noted and there was a total of five Dunlins. Apart from the numerous Lapwings the wader list was completed by singles of Black-tailed Godwit, Little Ringed Plover and Snipe. One of the more obvious birds showing today was a Great White Egret which spent most of its time feeding in the shallow water of the Sharp End. Alan's sharp eyes picked out a fairly distant Osprey and it was also Shozzer that found the eclipse plumage Garganey that has been here for a week or two. Final bird of note in this part of the res was an immature Egyptian Goose which was only my second sighting here.

Y-l Gull, Egyptian Goose and distant Garganey

We moved on to the island where a Yellow-legged Gull made a brief visit before flying off up the reservoir. More entertaining was the struggle between an immature Great Black-backed Gull and up to five Carrion Crows for possession of a large trout. The battle raged for about ten minutes as the crafty corvids tried various tricks to distract the gull with varying levels of success. Eventually the gull carried the fish into deeper water where it proceeded to swallow it. The large meal looked decidedly uncomfortable and after several minutes the gull puked the fish back up. Luckily by this time the posse of crows and moved on and it was free to peck away at the fish in relative peace.

Gull v crows!

Having left Eyebrook behind we paid a brief visit to Willowbrook Industrial Estate. There were no gulls here today and despite the sunny skies we only managed to find a few Common Blue butterflies and an Emperor dragonfly..