Caught a battle of wits between a female sparrowhawk and a robin in the back garden. The robin was chased around lavender, ceanothus & hid in forsythia. The sparrowhawk flushed the robin out several times but in the end escaped, much to the disappointment of the sparrowhawk who hung around various fence posts hoping for another potential victim to appear.
The were reports from @grimsbury_birds (Gareth Blockley) on Twitter that a red-crested pochard had dropped onto Grimbsbury Reservoir the previous day. 
I decided to take a look on the chance that it had roosted there overnight ... no such luck. As I had my boots and binoculars in the car I decided to continue on to Draycote Water to see if I could spot the long-staying black-necked grebe or the Iceland gull. Despite a temperature of around 8C, the breeze into your face on the path around the water was biting. I looked forward to the return when at least it would be on my back. I don't think I have ever seen so many little grebes on the same day; groups of 5, 3, 2 and a few on their own. 
In amongst these was the black-necked grebe, close to shore. Further on towards Toft Bay two groups of geese swam past: the first containing two white fronted geese; the second a single pink-footed goose. These geese were new ticks for me and added to the year list along with the bn grebe, little grebe and a chiffchaff.
From the hide in Toft Bay there were numerous great crested grebe displaying and looking like the weed dance may be moments away. Unfortunately they still seemed to be practicing.
A productive and very enjoyable day.
For the visit sightings (30) included: black-headed gull, mallard, teal, little grebe, coot, cormorant, lesser black backed gull, great crested grebe, pied wagtail, tufted duck, moorhen, long tailed tit, blue tit, great tit, wren, chiffchaff, greylag goose, canada goose, dunnock, pink-footed goose, carrion crow, magpie, rook, white-fronted goose, blackbird, goldeneye, woodpigeon, robin, sparrowhawk and black-necked grebe.
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