Grimsbury Med Gulls & recent round-up

Grimsbury Reservoir in Banbury I've discovered has a rather low-key gull roost and I've been giving it a grilling a few times during the past couple of weeks.

For such a small roost, it's actually been relatively productive with Med Gulls on 15/10 & 22/10 (2nd & 1st winter), as well as a 4th-winter Yellow-Legged Gull on 21/10 (shite pics of all below). Sadly doing this after work isn't going to happen now the clocks have changed, but I will probably give it a look at the weekends every now & then.

I currently have a pretty awesome number of hibernating butterflies in my garage totalling 1 Peacock & 18 Small Tortoiseshell! They've now been joined by a Herald moth over the last week or so. Will be interesting to see if any other late flyers join them all!

  












Locally, I've seen a few bits and bobs and autumn is now well and truly here. Redwing have been coming through in good bursts from the evening of 13/10 onwards when 13 zoomed over the house. No Fieldfare as yet, but a Brambling over the garden calling away on 15/10 was a nice surprise.

Even more of a surprise though came on Sunday (26/10). Spent a couple of hours at Boddington Reservoir. Very little of any any note, despite goods numbers of birds. Then, taking a look at the adjacent Byfield Pool, a big old Great White Egret appeared for a few seconds before flying strongly south, sadly not allowing me to even get a single photo of it! Although the species is now a relatively frequent visitor to Northants, it was still a great find and the first I've heard of turning up this end of the county