Trip reports

Tring Reservoirs, Herts.

Tony Wright

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Come and see the bittern at dusk the programme said. But come the day, the Friends of Tring Reservoirs informed us that due to low water, there were NO BITTERNS. So the organiser, David Baker , revamped the trip and decided to focus on Wilstone Reservoir. On a dry but chilly afternoon 20 birders, (including Janet and grandson Ollie on his first ever bird outing), gathered in the car park and climbed the steps to view a scene of very low water but a fair number of ducks. As we walked round to the hide, pied wagtail and jackdaw flew by, while a song thrush regaled us from the top of a distant tree. The mud showing in the reservoir encouraged the wigeon and teal, even a pheasant, while the deeper water had tufted, mallard, pochard and shoveller. We crowded into the hide with the back-row telescopes trying hard to see through the heads of the row in front. Nothing nearby, only one fleeting wren! However out on the rafts were cormorants and amongst the milling ducks and black-headed gulls was a Goosander. Slightly closer was what looked like a swan, but on careful viewing turned out to be a heron and a little egret, sitting side by side. In fact there were no swans or waders of any kind. As we were about to leave a largish flock of LBJs flew in just out of binocular range and landed on the sand, merging wonderfully. A large amount of discussion, in the end concluded that it was a flock of linnets.

We now decided to walk to the far side to investigate the geese. As we did a buzzard flew over and various song birds tweeted at us but were rarely seen. About 100 geese, Canada and greylag, were swimming along and the party viewed them eagerly to see if they could find the reported Brent goose. And there it was, desperately swimming at the back trying to keep up. Well it is a lot smaller! As we watched, it decided it had had enough and took off, flying in circles over our heads, giving us a far better view than in the water or on the field. So back to the car park, by which time we were all getting rather cold. So the party split into two groups, one to go for a coffee and then to Startops, the others to go home to the warm.
As suspected, Startops Reservoir was a lot quieter, although it did have the swans. We chose to walk round the reservoir, but nothing much new was seen. We eventually reached the point where the snow bunting has been seen regularly over recent weeks. One member thought he might have seen it fly into a bush, but he wasn't quite sure.... David Baker