Cheddar Reservoir

September 15, 2014

Dull early start to the day for a trip with Lee Gardner to Cheddar Reservoir for the Little Stint and then hopefully onto Berrow for some more waders and hopefully something interesting.

Arrived at Cheddar Reservoir at just after 8am and quickly located the Little Stint and the friendly Ringed Plover. We located the birds just as the cloud broke and this created a stunning light that made photographing these birds a little easier. Also the fact that you could you get very close to both birds helped. Spend an hour laid on my stomach but managed a few Little Stint, Ringed Plover and a close to shore Little Grebe.

Put a few mealworms down with both birds seemed to enjoy

Ringed Plover

Little Grebe

After spending nearly 2 hours at Cheddar we moved onto Berrow. Berrow was alive with wildlife lots of Dragonflies and Butterflies on the wing including a Large White and Clouded Yellow. We reached the beach 90 mins before High tide and located the wader flock. It included nearly 100 Sanderling, 100+ Dunlin, 20+ Ringed Plover, 3 Little Stints and 6 Curlew Sandpiper. Also along the beach were 5-10 Curlew and well over 100 Oystercatchers.

We had just settling down to photograph the waders when the news came in that a Red-backed Shrike had been found at Sand Point less then 30 minutes away. It was a no brainer as i had not seen one of these in the UK before. Boom we were off to Sand Point.

At Sand Point Lee and I meet up with another local photographer Brian Thompson and the 3 of us set off in search of our first Red-backed Shrike. It took us nearly and hour before we got our first glimpse of what we though was the bird and probably another 20 minutes before we had long enough views of this bird to confirm we what thought was the Shrike. This was my 3rd Shrike species in the UK along with Great Grey Shrike and Woodchat Shrike.

The Bird was very flighty and photographing this bird was hard managed a few shots but nothing to really shout about. Below is a couple of photos i took of a Red-backed Shrike in Cyprus

Red-backed Shrike, Cape Greco 2014

Also in the area were 3 Clouded Yellow Butterflies, a Rock Pipit and a Wheatear. Oh and a couple who were enjoying enjoying a romantic afternoon who were probably unaware that a rare bird had turned up right next to were they had decided to have a passionate embrace!!

Great day out and some photos that i was really happy with. Thanks to Lee for showing me the Little Stint.

Keywords: Berrow, Bird, birds, Butterflies, Cheddar Reservoir, Clouded Yellow, Curlew Sandpiper, Little Grebe, Little Stint, Red-backed Shrike, Ringed Plover, Sand Point, Waders, Wheatear