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Saturday 17 November 2018

Autumn at Cotswold Water Park


We started off from the car park and visitor centre at Lower Moor Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserve. In the first few bushes were the first of many robin and wren
Robin
We arrived at the first hide where we could see four wigeon on the far side and a confiding pair of mallard flew in and swam right up to the hide. Once we’d refilled the feeders, blue tit and great tit were in and out grabbing food. Kingfisher kept calling but managed to stay out of sight.  

We worked our way towards the next hide, on the way we checked out the main lake where a male  mute swan was busy evicting that year’s youngsters. Also present were a number of cormorant in the trees. Just after this we spotted an otter fishing out in the middle of the lake – great stuff!

Autumnal view from the hide
At the next hide the grey heron spotted us and was gone before we sat down, also present were more wigeon, mallard and mute swan. A pair of gadwall flew in to let us see their lovely plumage up close. 

We moved on past he impressive cattle shed to Clattinger Farm where we started seeing fieldfare and redwing in great numbers, perhaps 500 birds in total. We also had fleeting glimpses of long-tailed tit and goldcrest while walking round the fields. Flying over were siskin, lesser redpoll and yellowhammer.

It was then back to the hides to look for the elusive kingfisher, where the mute swan were still resting (NA).

A snoozing Penn