Weather: Bright & sunny but cold & breezy. From 1:45pm.
After a morning guided tour of Tring Natural History Museum's egg & nest collection I took advantage of being in the area & headed up to Wilstone.
From the carpark: overflying Starling & Pied Wagtail.
Up onto the reservoir wall: Mute Swan, Coot, Tufted Duck, Wigeon, Cormorant, Great-Crested Grebe, Pochard, Gadwall, Shoveler, Lapwing, Black-Headed Gull; Pheasant in the field opposite the reservoir & Wren in the hedgerow.
Rounding the corner into the woods: Grey Heron, Greylag Goose, Moorhen & Mallard; a couple of Little Egret on the bank near the woods, a first for me at Wilstone; a pair of Common Sandpiper darting about on the exposed mud, fighting or indulging in some early 2009 courting.
From the hide: Canada Goose, Woodpigeon, Teal & groups of over-flying House Martin, the last migrating stragglers. Something was spooking the waders, gulls & ducks but they went up a few times before the female Sparrowhawk flew into view & into the trees, before flying back into the woods behind the hide again.
Continuing to scan from the hide: Ringed Plover, Snipe (x5) on the exposed mud to the left of the hide near to the reedbeds; Kingfisher arrowed across the water showing it's magnificent orange breast, into the trees on the middle island where the sparrowhawk had been; Jackdaw twos & threes at the far side of the reservoir; a lone Ruff on the exposed mud to the right of the hide amongst Golden Plover (x8); a Long-Tailed Tit group also moved through the trees; another look at the assumed roosting mute swans revealed that they were in fact a pair of Whooper Swans, another first for Wilstone.
Back to the far end of the reservoir: Carrion Crow, Lesser Black-Backed Gull
After hearing a wagtail a few times but failing to clearly see what it was finally one alighted on a stump close to the hide & revealed itself as a Grey Wagtail, my first for many a year.
A Buzzard the soared over the trees to the far left of reservoir, & finally as I returned to the car a Mistle Thrush perched at the top of one of the chestnut trees near the car-park.
This wasn't the end of the day however because in the hide I read about sightings the day before of little gull on the Marsworth reservoir which I checked on an excellent Tring birding blog, so it was an easy choice to see if I could collect another life tick. On arriving at Marsworth it wasn't long before I picked out the two immature Little Gull constantly hawking over the water more like terns than gulls. I stayed for a while enjoying great views of the two in the fading sunlight, & also saw, in addition to those seen at Wilstone, a couple of over-flying Swallow & a lone Ruddy Duck, before heading home, another excellent day at Tring reservoirs.
42 species, 1 new species.
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