Cullingworth and Hewenden Reservoir

Tuesday 5th April p.m.
Another rainy morning put our birding off until this afternoon when the sun came out but with black clouds never far away but moving quickly in the blustery wind with a temperature of 8°C.We set off walking through the village on to the Great Northern Trail seeing very little in the form of bird life, the reservoir held five Cormorants.At the other side of the viaduct Station Road was also quiet with just Goldfinch and a Coal Tit spotted.The camera was still in its case and this carried on through the woods and it was beginning to look like a wasted walk as for pictures for my blog. A couple of distant Oystercatchers at the top end of the Reservoir brightened our spirits although they too were out of camera range.We went down the steep hill and across the beck that's one of the reservoir feeds and up the hill at the other side to get a view of the reservoir.A distant Goosander right at the cameras outer limits finally gave us a snap, others here were Cormorant,Grey Heron,Tufted Duck,Mallard & Coot.Then through the branches we spotted something different a male Teal & a second one, wow our spirits were now some what brighter as these were firsts for us on Hewenden Reservoir. While trying to get some decent snaps of these distant birds we noticed a big bird heading towards us over the tree tops.This was then mobbed by Carrion Crows and the five Cormorant sprang into action as they departed the scene, the bird finally came a bit closer for us to see it was a Buzzard another first for us here.We got some snaps always difficult with the bridge camera and the light was poor but we did get something.Whilst all this was going on we could hear a Green Woodpecker calling from where we saw them last year.Heading back we added Curlew,Great Crested Grebe,Pied & Grey Wagtail making for a successful afternoon in the end.

male Teal

Two for the price of one Teal

Buzzard

Cormorant

Cormorants exit right

male Goosander

GC Grebe

Hewenden Reservoir 5/4/2016