Yesterday (Saturday) I decided to visit Stanford Reservoir to catch up with the Sabines Gull which had been coming into the gull roost following the storms of last weekend. I knew that it had been seen coming into roost on Friday evening so all I needed to do was to get there before the gulls left the roost. What should have been straightforward turned out to be a real "Comedy of Errors ". I was up early as usual and left four slightly bemused dogs behind as I left without them. It was dark and also foggy but the journey to Stanford Reservoir was uneventful. I needed to access the Reservoir at the dam and that's when things went awry as I couldn't find the entrance to the dam!! It didn't help that it was dark and foggy and I also hadn't been to Stanford Reservoir for ages. I drove painfully slowly along the road for what seemed like ages and even ended up in Stanford on Avon. So I drove back from where I'd come and it was a bit lighter now and saw a very inconspicuous turn which took me down towards the dam. Phew I breathed a sigh of relief but also with a hint of panic as it was getting lighter and I didn't want to miss the gulls leaving. My next hiccup was with the padlock as for some reason I just found it very fiddly and I could sense the clock ticking. Once in I arrived at the car park there was only one other car parked and no sign of anyone else. I just grabbed my stuff and headed along the track to find a viewpoint. My heart sank when I saw that the majority of gulls were quite a way off and because I'm not familiar with the Reservoir I couldn't remember how much further I needed to walk to a better view point so I stayed put and attempted to set my scope and tripod into position. However my scope/tripod nearly ended up in the Reservoir as I fought to get the scope and tripod to talk to each other and not play up. Neil very kindly bought me a super dooper tripod which he assures me is easy to use but I cannot get on with it. It seemed to take me forever to attach the scope to it but it didn't help that I was trying to hold my phone as I needed to use the torch on it to see what I was doing. In hindsight I should have had it all attached and ready for action before I left home, lesson learnt. Finally I was ready to start looking and just spent my time scanning the gulls as they started to leave and it really was more by luck than judgement that I picked up the Sabines Gull as it flew through my field of view and departed. All that effort for a brief view. Bizarrely I had picked up a training spot for Tystie in the afternoon at Welford so after we had finished I decided to drive the Short distance back to Stanford Reservoir in the hope of getting a better view. Would you believe it but I missed the entrance down to the dam again, I just couldn't see it. This time the carpark was full but again due to the light conditions I ended up quite a way from where the gulls were coming into roost. This time I'd already got my scope and tripod attached so I was ready for action, but despite my best efforts I actually didn't see anything of interest although there were 2 Mediterranean Gulls, Caspian and Yellow Legged Gull present.
I haven't really seen much of note over the weekend. A couple of very quiet visits to Harrington Airfield, just lots of Fieldfares/Redwings in the bushes, small flocks of Golden Plover flying over and sadly a dead Water Rail at bunker 2. I've heard Bramblings, Siskins and Redpolls flying over wherever I've been and the Short-eared Owls are still around but the fields they like are being ploughed up so I expect that they will move on.
There's been a good variety of birds around this weekend as we said goodbye to October and hello to November. At Clifford Hill GP there was a female Common Scotor, 6 Golden Plover and Stonechats, 2 Cattle Egrets at Denford, a Hawfinch at Hazelborough Forest, female type Greater Scaup at Titchmarsh LNR, 20 Pintail, 6 Shelduck and an eye watering 1400+ Tufted Duck in the Scaldwell bay Pitsford Reservoir, 2 Dunlin at Hollowell Reservoir, female Ruddy Shelduck at Winwick Pools and an amazing 5 Mediterranean Gulls over Kettering heading north west.
Have a good week.
Regards Eleanor
