An outing to Boddington Reservoir

Hello

A short report by Helen Franklin...

Banbury Ornithological Society members spent a very pleasant evening yesterday Monday) at Boddington Reservoir (in Northamptonshire, just west of Byfield) for their summer outdoor meeting.  Initially the skies were threatening and indeed a brief shower sent us all scurrying for our waterproofs, but this quickly blew over and the rest of our time was attended by attractive cloud formations, a rainbow and a lovely sunset.

Birds included several species with juveniles in tow: Tufted Duck, Great Crested Grebes, Mute Swan (with 6 cygnets, which is a very good number for this site) and Mallard.  A small group of gulls was made up of mainly Black-headed Gulls with a few Lesser Black-backed.  Hedgerows contained Whitethroats, Chiffchaff, Reed Bunting and Yellowhammers and there was a large flock of corvids on telegraph wires south of the dam at the end of the water.  Swift and Swallows were overhead in small numbers and a Grey Heron, Common Sandpiper, a juvenile Grey Wagtail and two Kingfishers were disturbed as we walked around the path close to the water’s edge.

But the highlight for most of us was hearing a Cetti’s Warbler in the reed-bed in Byfield Pool at the back of the main reservoir, which belongs to The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire!

Regards

Neil M