Grimsbury Reservoir and Wormleighton :: 01/02 September 2022

As lunchtime arrived I noted an update on the Banbury Birds WhatsApp Group from Gareth Blockley (@grimsbury-birds) of great white egret at Grimsbury Reservoir. I quickly jumped in the car and noted on arrival that three had now been recorded. I worked my way round and found "just" the one in the northwestern corner but with two little egrets - possibly the three noted earlier? A grey heron flew past and I couldn't resist a photo. I only had my 30 minutes lunch and so I took some record shots of the GWE and made my way back to work.

The following morning I had to drop my daughter at the train station just before 6.30am and was then eating breakfast when Gareth posted another update, this time for a ferruginous duck on the reservoir - a first for the Res and possibly also a first for the Banbury Ornithological Society monitoring area. I quickly got ready for work and headed down to see the bird before going to the office. On the bank I met John Friendship Taylor (@987jonty) and Adrian Tysoe before they both had to leave. The bird was associating with some mallards, and they swam out and onto the northern bank so I followed them round. I could see Gareth with Steve Holliday by the bench on the northwestern corner and dropped round to talk to them before heading on. Gareth said the bird had made two attempts to leave, the first circling the water and heading north before returning just minutes later and a second time where it circled but dropped straight back on the water. Could this be one of the Draycote birds or perhaps more likely the one from Daventry Country Park.

That was two special birds in two days ... what next?!

I then had an opportunity to drop into Wormleighton for just a few minutes and stood watching the numbers of spotted flycatchers around the entrance to the water treatment site. There were quite a few amongst the great and blue tits, and chiffchaff - unfortunately I couldn't find a pied flycatcher amongst them, or the redstart that has been mentioned by others. Perhaps if I had more time.