A rather rotten cold has been keeping me away from the reserve for the last few days and I have been missing my early morning and early evening visits. However we did make a short visit this weekend while the sun was shining and although things were a little sparse I did snap the above photo of a Dunnock. They are dastardly little fellows to get a shot of as they tend to hide away in the foliage but this one graced me with a decent opportunity.
Apart from that it was a quiet visit to this part of the reserve, no sign of the greylags, the shellduck or ruddyduck, The Kingfisher neglected to make an appearance and even the poor old grey heron stayed away probably due to the constant mobbing they receive from the black headed gulls. There wasn't even much going on in the reeds, the reed warblers, sedge warblers etc seemed to be on an afternoon siesta. The greater crested grebes were about as usual along with some tufted duck and with a pair of oyster catcher away on one of the islands and the swifts were doing their usual aerobatics over the water. The mute swans with their six cygnets came over to the front of the hide and out of the water on this visit which provided some nice views of the young whilst a mallard very cautiously moved her brood of eight past to threatening hisses from the mute swans.
Mind even though I haven't been down to the reserve much in the past week there are still things to be seen while out and about working around the country. A visit to Salford last week gave some nice views of cormorant sunning themselves around the quays and on the journey back from Glasgow at the end of the week a stop off at Killington Lake provided some nice views of chaffinch in the trees around the lake.
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