Sutton Bingham - Tue 31 Aug

I popped up to the reservoir after work today, arriving at about 5.45pm, as an Osprey had been seen early morning. Unfortunately, the bird was nowhere to be seen, and the southern end of the reservoir produced just a Green Sandpiper in the way of interest. Outside of the hide I bumped in to Ivan Tinsley, the Wessex Water warden, who mentioned that he had seen a stork fly over the road opposite Goose Slade Farm just up the road. Despite Ivan's exciting news (and as I'm a born sceptic) I thought that I'd take a look over the reservoir proper first.
From the northern causeway there were four Teal and the adult Yellow-legged Gull was again present, showing well on a buoy.With not much else about, I decided to check out Ivan's news and drove back to Goose Slade Farm and parked in the layby opposite, got out of the car, and looked in to the field...and could not believe my eyes as two White Storks were feeding in front of me! After the initial shock, I quickly phoned Rare Bird Alert and then made numerous phone calls to various Somerset birders! The birds were still present when I left just before 8.30pm, and I did manage to get a few record shots using my mobile phone:




UK year list for 2010 now at 204 species.