Tring Reservoirs and Ivinghoe (2nd September)

WILSTONE RESERVOIR

As always had an excellent day out at Tring Reservoirs with three new additions to my growing year list!  I arrived at c.7:00am and was lucky to arrived just as the juv. Little Stint was feeding very close to the jetty and approached up to several meters from the end of the jetty.

Little Stint

After c.20 minutes of watching it feeding amongst 8 Ringed Plovers (a mixture of adults and juveniles) it flew of towards the SE bank and continued to feed.  A Peregrine was also a surprise fly over as it headed directly over the SE edge of the reservoir towards Drayton Beauchamp.  A Whinchat was also in the overflow field showing amazingly whilst perching on the thistle plants, also in the same field were several Yellowhammer, Willow Warbler and a Chinese Water Deer was also to the right of the hide along the reeds.

  Whinchat

The highlights at the hide were 1 Green Sandpiper, 2 Common Sandpipers, 1 juvenile Ruff present amongst a flock of 50+ Lapwing that occasionally took flight as the resident group of 3 Hobbies (including 1 juv.) flew over.  The juvenile being the most showy by making a close pass infront of the hide and landing on the mud giving a great oppotunity to make a good plumage comparsions with the adults.

STARTOP'S END AND MARSWORTH RESERVOIR

The water level at Startop's still remains relatively high however the margins still hosted a juv.♂ Ruff, a feral pair of Whooper Swans and 2 Hobbies over Marsworth R.

Ruff

INCOMBE HOLE

Only a short visit to the hills was relatively unproductive.  However the recent success at the reservoirs with all the key species of the day having been seen less effort was put into finding more birds, Kestrels and Linnet were the main bird of not on the downs however I also glimpse a small chat, most likely a Stonechat given the white scapulars small size and reddish brown body fly around the valley and land in a hedge were it didn't show again.

(all photos taken by my brother Ephraim)