A small group of our members braved the cold, misty, murk on our monthly Sunday morning walk in January at Draycote Reservoir. Fortunately not windy or wet, but the visibility could have been better, however we were treated at the start with a Ferruginous Duck close in by the Pontoons. It was close enough for John to photograph, plus a number of little grebe always a delight.
We continued along the Dam wall buzzed by the numerous cyclists and joggers, still ticking off Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush and Redwing on the grassland below, whilst on the water to our left dozens of Coot, Great Crested Grebe, Tufted Duck and Mallard dived and dabbled. We were always scanning across the reservoir, without any luck, for the expected Red-throated Diver until the central waters were taken over by windsurfers and sail boats effectively splitting the reservoir in two.
We continued to check out Toft Bay with large numbers of birds present, mainly Tufty and Coot, very few Gulls. The only other finds were 1 Greylag, 3 Canada geese and 5 Common Pochard.
Rather than walk all the way round we decided to double back and head for Rainbow Corner past the Sailing Club on advice we'd pickup. We managed to add to our list a couple of Chiff Chaff and a small flock of Long-tailed Tit feeding in the grassland, plus Golden eye and Goosander on the water, but frustratingly no sign of the Red Throated Diver.
With our Parking tickets running out we headed back, with the boats leaving the water as well. Shortly after, I discovered the Diver was recorded as we were driving away, just our luck....
Apart from pervious mentioned - Grey Heron, Moorhen, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Pied Wagtail, Dunnock, Robin, Woodpigeon, Black-Headed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull.
Total - 30 species.
Report by Nev Weston
Featured pic is the Ferruginous Duck by John Taylor 19/01/24 at Draycote Water. Sometimes called the White-eyed duck.
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