Friday 13th - lucky moving day. Again.

As luck/chance/fate, or none of the above would have it, it is exactly a month since the feeders were last moved - hence the title. It has a slight oriental ring to it, to my mind, and would have course been amply completed with a nice Chinese Pond Heron or something similar on site, but alas it was not to be. After a hard mornings graft (cleaning holiday lodges as the latest exciting task visited upon me by the agency), and it was over to Stithians with some more poles in order to refill the feeders and move to them a new spot within the area.

A couple of Blue Tits and some near empty feeders - if only they'd stop eating all the food!

As mentioned previously, the feeders need moving on a regular basis - this time it was back the way they came, but a little closer (hopefully to still give half-decent views for the pesky humans), hence the poles (ex-willow branches, not ex-agency staff from foreign lands of course). I didn't quite have enough, so a minor bit of cannibalism of the contraption t'other side was required, and the end result even more Heath Robinsy than before (or 'Rustic' to be more precise) but as long as the birds like it and it doesn't fall over too soon it's all ok as far as I'm concerned.

Mr Heath Robinson would've been proud ...

The Southern Hide and closest feeders

A nice red fungus (not it's real scientific name) from below the feeders

The feeders, despite being nigh-on emptied by the voracious hordes of winged guzzlers, were still as popular as ever.

Birds present -

1 Moorhen (showing well for once)

6+ Blue Tit

3 Great Tit

4 Dunnock

17+ Chaffinch

2 House Sparrow

6 Goldfinch (actually they were just flyovers - probably as a protest the nyger seed had all been consumed)

1 Magpie

1 Blackbird 

and 3+ Reed Bunting

Out on the water, 9 Wigeon still were nice, 2 Mallard proportionately less so, with 50+ Starling over being interesting, and one Muscovy Duck being of almost unmentionable and unparalleled beauty ... perhaps. 

A duck of superlative beauty? Hmmm ....

The waters on the main reservoir were pretty bleak and underwhelming, but there were still birds out there -

2 Great Crested Grebe

1 Grey Heron

1 Little Egret

1 Coot (it's crossed over!)

2 Cormorant

8 Little Grebe

4 Mallard

12 Canada Geese in the distant green field

with 1 Buzzard and 3 Carrion Crows over.

So no spring migrants yet ... and no sign of the Slavonian Grebe either. Perhaps it (and hopefully some more Great Cresteds were hiding in a sheltered bay, or perhaps my brief sweep of the waters failed to reveal them amongst all the wavelets.

Bit choppy and a nearly full reservoir

Other recent sightings -

Sometimes almost an afterthought, or tagged on the end but bird of the week at any rate in this portion (if you exclude the Muscovy Duck of course), and almost breaking news - a Bittern at Stithians for one lucky observer (Julie Martin) from the Southern Cutoff Hide on Sunday the 15th - only report this winter as far as I'm aware. Also -

Kingfisher, Water Rail and GSW on the 8th (J and F Rice)

Slavonian Grebe, 3 f type Goldeneye, 2 Snipe and 6 Reed Bunting on the 14th (J St Ledger)