I fancied a trip out on the Bank Holiday Monday and agreed with my wife that a visit to RSPB Middleton Lakes would be nice: I haven't been recently; it is a nice circuit; there were reports of great white egrets and crucially a spoonbill. Early in the morning it doesn't take long from Banbury and 50 minutes later were pulling into the reserve car park; there were plenty of spaces and it also probably meant the paths would be relatively quiet.
We passed the feeders and again noted many moorhen chicks accompanied by around 18 rats; blue and great tits visited the feeders. We waited but nothing of any note appeared. We made our way along the trail and as we crossed the canal bridge a nuthatch dropped onto the side and hopped along - I think people ignore the instructions and place seed on the structure which has made the birds a bit too confident and trusting of visitors. Nice to get a close view and a photo but a bit artificial. It was joined by a couple of chaffinches and a robin. We didn't hang about and made for the scrapes.
We arrived at the first screen to find two birders getting up from the benches - apparently the spoonbill had been feeding in the pool in front of us but had flown "just before" we got there - isn't it always the way? We watched a great white egret, a grey heron and little egret feed but I was keen to move on to see if I could find the spoonbill. It didn't take long but disappointingly it was at a fair distance from the path.
Given the distance I was quite happy with the photos. The bird preened for a short time but then buried its head and went to sleep - not much point in hanging around here as it wasn't likely to moving any time soon. A Cetti's warbler called from behind us -andI stopped and waited to see if it would show. It gave another call and the briefest of views as it headed back parallel to the path we'd just walked along. A few little and a couple of great white egrets could be seen ahead, and we started to make our way and started talking with a very nice couple; apparently they had been to Brandon Marsh the day before and seen the same collection of birds that I had on Saturday.
We walked all around and dropped into the Wetland Lookout hide but didn't see anything of interest but continued chatting with the other couple. It made for a very enjoyable morning.
Time was getting on and we would have to get home by late lunchtime so said our goodbyes and completed the circuit. Almost back to the first screen we could see one of the great white egrets stalking the pool and I could resist taking a couple of photos. I'd hoped that the spoonbill would have relocated back to the pool while we had been away, but it was still on the same distant island. We paused to see if it would start to move around but instead flocks of birds behind took to the air - some raptor species would likely have been responsible, and I scanned the birds to pick out the culprit; it didn't take long to see what I presumed was a peregrine circling. The flocks spun around but very quickly the raptor decided the element of surprise had been lost and departed. As it left, I snapped a couple of photos and on review it was actually a hobby.
Time to pack up and mosey on home, happy to have seen a spoonbill without having to travel to the south or east coasts.
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