Grey Phalarope & GNDs

On Saturday (28/11), with the weather looking clear & bright early on, I decided to drive the 35 minutes or so to Farmoor Reservoir close to Oxford, to enjoy a favourite of mine, a Grey Phalarope that had thankfully hung around all week. With the addition of the long-staying Red Necked Grebe on offer too, it was well worth a look.

I arrived at pretty much dead on 8am and within a minute of leaving the car, I was enjoying fabulous close-range views of the Grey Phalarope in the NE corner of F2. It was, as expected very busy, constantly on the move feeding mainly on small food items, however did catch itself a sizable stickleback at one point. After a while, it disappeared towards the causeway so I decided to walk a circuit of F2 on what was a very cold but bright morning

  

The walk produced very little of note other than a single Little Egret, however the light was nice...

It had now clouded over and had become flipping freezing! A scan for the Red-Necked Grebe on F2 was fruitless, however I soon picked it out distantly in the centre of F1, chilling with a handful of Great Crested Grebes. Before I left I also had one last fix of the Phalarope, this time mid-way along the causeway on the F2 side. Again it showed amazingly well despite the constant harassment from photographers, pretty much getting in the water with it! It was then time to head home for a cuppa & a bit of Soccer Saturday.

Yesterday, (Sunday 29/11) I joined up with Gareth Blockley & Dan Watson for a bit of Warwickshire birding, a new experience for me! Late morning, in cloudy & insanely windy conditions, we gave Draycote Water a go, surprisingly my first ever visit there. Towards Toft Bay, A Great Northern Diver was on show distantly and both drake & Redhead Goosander were seeing flying about.

A walk the other way towards Rainbow Corner didn't produce a great deal of variety, however we managed to get some excellent views of the other 2 Great Northern Divers, both juveniles that have been present for at least a week or so.

  





















The finished the day at Dan's patch, Weston Lane Landfill site between Leamington & Coventry for a bit of 'gulling'. Despite our best efforts, we failed to get onto anything decent but will certainly be back! Best birds were a brief 1st-winter Yellow-Legged Gull, 2-3 Green Sandpiper, tonnes of Raven around the tip & a flyover Redpoll sp.