Grimsbury Reservoir :: 14 April 2022

I was finishing breakfast when the Banbury Birders WhatsApp Group alerted me to a message from Gareth Blockley to say that he'd found a pair of common redstarts at Grimsbury Reservoir. I was due to start gardening and so now was an opportune time to exit and visit the reservoir!

I arrived to meet Gareth and Adrian Tysoe coming the other way. They updated me with the location of the redstarts and mentioned that there was also a common sandpiper and whitethroat which have evaded my year list so far - whitethroats just starting to appear across the country. I thanked them and quickly made my way to the redstart’s location noting that the common sandpiper was currently not on the pontoon as advertised. I scanned the hedge line along the ditch beyond the cow field. It took a few minutes, but I soon found the male bird - never did see the female. I took some record shots as that is all it could be given the distance - 115-120m!

I scanned back along the water's edge and the pontoon and noticed that the common sand was showing and so walked back to get a photo of that. Now I returned and watched the redstart again, then onto the north end to see if I could locate the whitethroat.

I could hear the whitethroat singing but couldn't see it, until at last it appeared at the top of a small tree. I raised my camera and just at that moment the bird dropped down into the brambles and was lost from view. I waited for a few minutes until it could be heard singing again but from deep in the brambles. I moved around and located where it was and had a reasonable line of sight to take a photo. Not bad - three new species for the year list.

It really was time to make my way home but, on the way, I could hear a willow warbler singing from the top of a tree on the other side of the river - no point in a photo as it would be a silhouette and a small dot at that distance. A fourth new species though. I got home to find my wife already in the garden and starting the attack on the weed- and grass-ridden vegetable plot; time to join in.