Tag Archives: Pitsford Nature Reserve

A short visit with big rewards

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We’ve been having a quiet weekend after quite a few busy ones over the last couple of months. Not wanting to be stuck inside, despite the pretty poor weather for July (is it ever going to stop with the endless stream of showers and heavier rain?), we made a short trip to the nature reserve at Pitsford Water. As we made our way to the first larger hide in Scaldwell Bay, we met a birdwatcher who said he’d seen a black-necked grebe. After a little looking around with our binoculars, it couldn’t be seen, so we wandered off. A few hundred metres further on, we stopped and scanned the water’s edge some more, and there it was floating and diving in an area that had been hidden from view earlier. As my first black-necked grebe, this was a good return on a quick trip to the reservoir.

However, we wandered on to the hide and saw a big group of cormorants on the old tree stumps at the edge of the water and small numbers of black-headed gulls, with their summer plumage starting to fade. Sadly, we didn’t see many common terns at all, and I wonder whether they have been hit by bird flu this breeding season, as there were many more when we visited earlier in the spring. Hearing their calls has become one of my favourite sounds of the summer when visiting Pitsford.

As we left the hide we came across a nice patch of brambles and thistles with really good numbers of butterflies feeding on the flowers – peacock, gatekeeper, painted lady, comma and large white – as well as large numbers of damselflies. Just as we turned to leave we also heard a marsh tit calling from the trees beyond – I still haven’t seen one this year but heard quite a few now.

As we headed home, it began to rain again, still no sign of a settled spell of summer weather.

A gap in the rain for a wintry wander

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With a day to spare between getting home from our New Year trip to Devon and returning to work, we did plan to go on one of our favourite local walks. However, the weather was pretty awful so we spent the morning de-Christmasing the house. The afternoon looked little better but with the rest of the week likely to be spent working in my office at home (due to the train strikes), I decided I had to get out of the house, even it is was for a short while. We’re lucky to have Pitsford Reservoir about a ten minute drive away and it’s our nearest nature reserve, With a gap in the rain, I jumped in the car and headed that way.

After all the hot weather and the drought over the summer, the water has been very low, even with significant local rainfall over the course of the autumn. However, on my first trip to the shores this year, the water is now back up to its high winter levels. This means that there is now very little exposed mud around the lake therefore little space for waders to feed; I saw only a handful of lapwing on my short walk.

On the other hand, the wildfowl are at very large numbers around the site and they gave me a good start to my year list of birds I’ve seen. There were good numbers of wigeon, mallard, teal, gadwall, tufted duck, and great crested grebe alongside smaller numbers of pochard. Thankfully, I didn’t see any signs of avian influenza; last time I counted 11 dead mute swans around the lake edge but I saw none today.

Elsewhere away from the water, there we plenty of fieldfares and redwings alongside groups of finches, tits and yellowhammers as well as tree sparrows in their usual place at the bottom of the track down from the main road to the western shore. Overall, I added 33 birds to my year list, not bad for an hour’s wander along the short of Scaldwell Bay.

The two images below are the same spot in the bay, looking from the Bird Club Hide, taken just over three weeks apart; the lower and partly frozen water in the first compared to the much higher water levels in the second.