Tring Reservoirs - 1.1.15

New years day saw me up at Tring Reservoirs to get the new year list underway and start my new Patch Birding Challenge list. As mentioned in my last post I have changed my patch for 2015 just for ease of getting there and getting home again.

The list started off in the back garden with 15 species seen. I then headed up to the reservoirs starting off at Wilstone. A couple of Herring Gull were useful as not many are seen there and the first decent bird of the year were 4 Golden Plover that flew over. I don't think I've ever seen this species at Hilfield so the new patch was already paying off! A female Goldeneye was the next noteworthy bird seen distantly from the hide. I then took a wander around the dry canal/rushy meadow area. While passing the meadow an Oystercatcher flew over calling twice which was an early record for the site. But the best bird of the day was seen from the jetty when I picked out the long staying but erratically seen female Scaup. A nice 2 pointer for the challenge! I then moved onto the smaller reservoirs steadily ticking off new species. I ended up at Marsworth hoping for a Bittern to show itself but it wasn't playing ball. Only 5 Corn Bunting flew into roost and a Cetti's Warbler calling was another 2 points on the board. 66 species were seen by sunset so not too bad a total.