Late Autumn at the Cotswold Water Park

We started in Neigh Bridge car park where we managed to get views of a grey wagtail and a blue tit. We then headed over to the edge of the first lake where a great crested grebe was resting and a moorhen was looking lost in the middle of the lake. In the bushes here we saw our first redwing, blackbird and an all too brief view of two mistle thrush. We also briefly saw robin, wren and goldcrest. We headed along the road and had the first of many very brief views of song thrush and bullfinch as they quickly disappeared!

On the next lake we saw a large flock of red-crested pochard, also present were cormorant, coot and mute swan. As we headed on down the lane we picked up dunnock, jackdaw, magpie and carrion crow. We also started bumping into mixed tit flocks and were lucky enough to see more goldcrest as well as great tit, long-tailed tit and chiffchaff. We also managed to see a great spotted woodpecker, woodpigeon, treecreeper, fieldfare, jay and an all too brief view of a goldfinch and chaffinch.

At the big lake with the housing at the back we managed to add teal, tufted duck, wigeon, pochard, black-headed gull and common gull to our fast growing list.

We moved on to the next lake seeing more robin and long-tailed tit as we did. At the next lake with the recently cleared viewing area we had views of little egret, grey heron, gadwall, mallard and shoveler and a kingfisher tried to slip by without us seeing it, it didn't quite manage it!

We headed over to a large lake with islands where we had great views of tufted duck, great crested grebe and cormorant in their day roost in the trees.We then worked through the scrub seeing more redwing, blackbird, song thrush and robin. Some careful searching gave us clear signs of otters in the are with spraints and food remains being found.

Then onto the next lakes where we saw a group of goosander as well as more gadwall, moorhen, coot and tufted duck.  We continued to see redwing flushing ahead of us, as well as song thrush and more elusive bullfinches. We worked our way back through the scrub to the road where we had great views of a great spotted woodpecker at the top of a tree.

A great walk with the bushes full of thrushes and the lakes starting to fill up with waterfowl of many species!

(NA)