Focus on Drift Reservoir

Above is the view from a cover point that I sometimes use at Drift Reservoir and the images below were all taken during a three hour shoot there earlier today.


Nice to see a squirrel freely foraging about on the reservoirs open banks.

It is quite common to see fox out hunting on the shoreline and this one came very close until I fired my shutter after which it took off in a flash.

Many Grey Heron grace the banks of Drift Reservoir and reflections shots and take-off 's are there for the taking.

The resident Moorhen are always busy and they provide good reflection images from the many partially submerged tree stumps.

With plenty of small fish and dozens of tree stumps to work from Kingfishers are a common sight around Drift Reservoir.

Last but not least comes this fairly rare sighting of a nice Black Rabbit !

Cormorant Roost

There are currently twenty + Cormorants that roost in a single tree on the west side of the northeast arm of Drift Reservoir,  These birds are amazingly agile fish feeders and they must take one hell of a toll from the Trout and Golden Rudd population of this reservoir every year.

Being such successful hunters means that they have plenty of leisure time to socialise and to adopt their classic wing drying poses that are favoured by most photographers.

Another fish goes down the hatch above and the poser below looks as though he just hasn't got room to fit in any more today

Little Egret Fishing

Two Little Egret fly into the North East arm of Drift Reservoir for a spot of fishing on its shallow margins. The birds separated and I tracked the closer of the pair as it entered the margins in front of my cover.

It kept me busy for just over an hour as it predated on small fish and frogs and then rested for ten minutes before flying off in the direction that it had come from.

Little Egrets are very skillful hunters and always a joy to watch and photograph !

Drift Reservoir

I revisited Drift reservoir yesterday to check for Great Crested Grebe sightings and Mating interaction,  Last year I followed a pair from mating through to bringing on two fledglings and am considering doing the same on a blog this year.

On arrival I could hardly ignore the resident male Manderin duck strutting its stuff  among the mallard looking like a mechanical Piccasso, for surely something other than nature came up with its design

Walking on along the margins I saw my first Great Crested Grebe diving for fish occasionally as it classically kept moving away from me,  To say that they are camera shy would be an understatement as I found out during last years attempts to compile a full photographic record of a summer season,

I decided to set myself up in the hide and try my luck with closer bird passes while keeping the front of my unhooded 500mm lens well back inside the viewing slots,  Around two hours later while keeping very still and quiet I had the reward of a Grebe fishing directly in front of the Hide for around five minutes which produced several portrait images including the two above and below,

Tufted Duck were also quite high in numbers with 20+ sighted fishing in random small groups around the reservoir,  Three Little grebes also came in close to the hid but the low light levels made it difficult to create a pleasing image,

Just before leaving the sound of two hundred or more very loud Canada geese landing on the water shattered the peace of the afternoon so after taking a few flight shots I headed back along the margins reflecting over a very pleasant afternoon at drift which was looking well managed and sporting healthy bird numbers