A Saturday at Farmoor Reservoir 27th July 2025

It's that quiet time of the year again, when birds have stopped singing and skulk in hedgerows and leafy cover while they undergo their annual moult prior to winter or feed a hidden brood of recently fledged young. High summer has commenced its annual, slow and inexorable decline into autumn. 

Mind you there are birds to be found or more often heard around the reservoir, young birds such as Reed Warblers just out of the nest, voicing their hidden presence, calling to their parents with  peremptory squawks  and chirps from within the depths of hedges, reed beds and bramble ensnared hawthorns.

With little of birding note nationally I took myself as I am prone to do in such situations to Farmoor Reservoir, continuing my ongoing fractious relationship with its familiar prosaic surrounds. There is always a vague optimism that precedes each visit, the forever hope that this will be the day something out of the ordinary may turn up and occasionally it does though usually not.

Now is when returning migrant waders  begin to arrive at the water's edge on each side of the central causeway and tarry for a while to refuel, breaking a long flight as they journey south from the Arctic. Dunlin usually are the first to show up and some have already passed through in the last two weeks, these being adults, told by their worn and faded plumage. The first juvenile arrived today, quite early and in contrast to the adults appearing immaculate, dapper even in a first plumage of ginger toned pristine feathers  which it will moult over the next couple of months into a less attractive, subdued winter grey.

This morning whilst walking along the causeway it became all too apparent that the number of Common Terns had increased from the regular half a dozen that have taken up temporary residence on the reservoir before migrating to their winter home. I counted nineteen today, seven of these being juvenile birds.The terns have not bred here but probably on nearby gravel pits and the parents have brought them to the wider expanses of Farmoor's waters where there are plenty of small fish available.

Even before walking up the path to the reservoir's perimeter track from the car park I could hear the terns. The raucous cries of the adults and beseeching calls of the juveniles distinct from those of the Black headed Gulls. They are hyperactive birds - incapable of remaining still for long, nervy and constantly restless, adults and young swooping over the water, their harsh calls seemingly a prerequsite to any flight they undertake. The adult terns fly with a buoyant motion, elegance personified and justifying their vernacular name of 'sea swallow' and are pursued by juveniles that are well able to fend for themselves but continue to chance their luck by pestering the parent birds to bring them just one more fishy offering.Another month and they will be gone south to Africa.

Juvenile Common Tern

Adult Common Tern with its full grown offspring

Other juveniles perch on the concrete walls by the water or form a line on the railings to the valve tower on the smaller basin, safe from disturbance and a favoured go to location when the reservoir becomes busy with yachting and windsurfing folk.

A Greater Black backed Gull eyeballed me from the retaining wall of the causeway, reluctant to move away from one of the large dead fish that are regularly washed up at this time of year onto the concrete at the water's edge.They are brutish birds, imposing and merciless killers that are always on the lookout for a victim or signs of weakness in the other waterbirds around them and are rightly given a wide berth by the smaller gulls and terns.

Greater Black backed Gull

Further along an adult Yellow legged Gull also stood on the wall, prospecting yet another expired fish.The Greater Black back is unusually early on the reservoir but the handful of Yellow legged Gulls which cease breeding well before our native Herring Gulls, have been here for over a month now and are always the first large, grey backed gulls to arrive on the reservoir, coming from their southern European breeding areas.to while away the lazy days of late summer and early autumn on the reservoir. 

Yellow legged Gull

Tufted Ducks often produce a brood in late July and today was typical as there was a family of four newly hatched young accompanied rather weirdly by not one but two females. The dusky young are precocious and are accomplished divers from the day they take to the water.They stick close to the adults and are wise to do so as predatory pike that inhabit the reservoir, crows and gulls will all kill and eat them given the chance

I walked from the end of the causeway down a sloping path to the hide at Pinkhill, one of the small reserves created by Thames Water at the western end of the reservoir and adjacent to the river. I opened the door and a couple sat on a bench by an open viewing slat motioned to me frantically to not make any noise.

Kingfisher!!  they whispered urgently and excitedly pointed to an upright  stick in the water, a few metres out from the hide  

Sure enough a Kingfisher was perched there, low to the water and intent on fishing and for once was not spooked by the occupants of the hide, which on previous occasions has frustratingly often proved to be the case.

It was a juvenile so probably less wary than an adult, its dull brown legs and feet, spotted breast and pale tip to its all black bill confirming its age beyond any doubt.

Down the years I have seen countless Kingfishers from here and the other hide at Shrike Meadow Reserve, a quarter of a mile upriver but every time the thrill of encounter never palls, engendered by a combination of the bird's unadulterated radiance and the elusiveness of the bird itself which only on rare situations such as this offers the opportunity to view it at rest, so its beauty and persona can be truly appreciated.

The Kingfisher remained perched for a spell, about facing on its branch every so often or cocking its head to catch any movement  in the water below, then eventually dived into the water to bring back a tiny fish, hardly enough to satisfy its appetite although still un-necessarily beaten against the branch to subdue it. An action more due to instinct than necessity. 

Two thirds of all young Kingfshers die within two weeks of leaving the nest either from starvation due to their lack of experience in catching fish or they drown. Hopefully this individual will be one of the lucky remaining third but it will need to do much better than the tiny morsel it captured. Still it's a start I guess and practice makes perfect especially when your life depends on it.

It tried its luck again but with the same result, another tiny fish.Better than nothing I suppose  For some minutes it sat and regarded the shallow water below as Black tailed Skimmer dragonflies cruised and fussed across the water, the males powder blue bodies very obvious as they settled on the dried mud to sun themselves.

With a shrill whistle the Kingfisher departed, a streak of disembodied electric blue as it sped up and over the surrounding willow carr towards the river.