2 Mute swan, Great crested grebes 2, Canada goose,38 greylag geese, 14 cormorant, 6 Mallard, chiffchaff, wood pigeon, blackcap, 6vcommon tern, black headed gull, 5 grey heron, carrion crow, great black backed gull, blackbird & a wren.
Month: June 2026
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29th June 2026 seen by Linsey Gooding
West End:- 22 x Greylag Goose, 12 x Canada Goose, 2 x Mandarin Duck, 5 x Mallard, 2 x Common Moorhen, 1 x Common Sandpiper, 1 x Green Sandpiper, 5 x Black-headed Gull, 11 x Common Tern, 7 x Great Crested Grebe, 13 x Great Cormorant, 5 x Grey Heron, 1 x Common Buzzard, 3 x Eurasian Jackdaw, 1 x Carrion Crow, 2 x Barn Swallow, 2 x Common Chiffchaff, 2 x Eurasian Blackcap
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29th June 2026 seen by Alastair Gray (via WhatsApp)
West end
Common Sandpiper opposite car park viewing by kingfisher bank on dead branches,Green Sandpiper on right tern raft, and a Lapwing on Pintail bank.
Dam End: No waders at dam end,1 Tufted Duck,37 Herring Gull,14 Black headed gulls,2 Lesser black backed gulls,1 Great black backed gull, few Common Terns.
4 Buzzards,Red Kite,Swallow,10 Egyptians,40 Canadas,22 Greylags.Whilletts:
Whillet’s butterfly survey
6 Comma
20 Green veined Whites
2 Holly Blue
16 Large Skippers
9 Marbled Whites
92 Meadow Browns
5 Painted Lady’s
2 Peacock
5 Red Admiral
52 Ringlets
5 Small Coppers
32 Small SkippersDamsel & Dragons
5 Beautiful Demoiselles
1 Black tailed Skimmer
3 Blue tailed Damselflies
2 Brown Hawkers
1 Downy Emerald
2 Emperor Dragonfly
8 White legged Damselflies3 Grass Snakes
1 Weasel
2 Grey Wagtails
2 Buntings
5 Reed Warblers
2 Whitethroats
1 Kingfisher -
28th June 2026 seen by Jonathon Ross (via WhatsApp)
West end this afternoon. Still 1 GCG chick sticking close to its parent. There is an occupied nest just visible below the heronry and another along the south bank with at least 1 egg. I could only see 1 tern chick but it looks well fed. 5 Mandarins, 2 Mute Swans, Coot, Red Kite, Kingfisher, a few Herring and a couple of LBB Gulls passing through.
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28th June 2026 seen by Linsey Gooding
West End:- 32 x Greylag Goose, 12 x Canada Goose, 2 x Mute Swan, 2 x Egyptian Goose, 1 x Mandarin Duck, 9 x Mallard, 5 x Common Woodpigeon, 3 x Black-headed Gull, 1 x Great Black-backed Gull, 10 x Common Tern, 13 x Great Crested Grebe, 24 x Great Cormorant, 6 x Grey Heron, 1 x Great Spotted Woodpecker, 1 x Carrion Crow, 2 x Eurasian Blue Tit, 2 x Common Chiffchaff, 1 x Eurasian Blackcap, 1 x Eurasian Nuthatch, 1 x Eurasian Blackbird
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27th June 2026 seen by Alastair Gray (via WhatsApp)
West end with David mid afternoon,2 Mute Swans,64 Greylags,4 Mandarins,Little Egret,Bullfinch,2 Swifts & Marsh Tit.
pretty sure just the one chick now on blue raft, has grown fast and was flapping its wings.( Has anyone seen second chick recently).Still 4 Terns & 2 Black headed gulls on eggs,Great black backed Gull flying around rafts being chased by BH Gulls & Terns.
Brown Hawker,HollyBlue and large number of Small & Large Whites maybe 20 seen.
Raptors just male Sparrowhawk & kestrel. -
26th June 2026 seen by Nigel Driver (via WhatsApp)
WeirWood late morning to early afternoon. At the west end, still the Common Terns were feeding youngsters others still on eggs, also the Black-headed Gulls were around 2 remaining on the nests. A minimum of 10 Great-crested Grebes were noted with loads of Grey Lag Geese. A single Herring Gull was making a nuisance of itself around the nesting platforms. Of note too were a couple of Little Egrets that flew over the heronry. 3 Buzzards were over the c/pk, an adult and 2 young. A Red Kite as is usual, male Kestrel and a male Goshawk over Admiral’s Wood. At Whillett’s 4 Reed Warblers inc’ 3 imm’s, also 3 Reed Buntings, Garden Warbler and 2 Bullfinches a male and female. The only surprise was a beautiful Swallowtail butterfly just in front of the hide for a moment before flying off. I left at 13:00hrs.
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Work Party – May 2026
May included two very wet Tuesday workdays that severely restricted what larger project work we could sensibly ask volunteers to carry out in those conditions. We did find we had a completely flooded road in front of the access gate to Whillet’s on one of those days. We spent some time unblocking the drain of points that feed into the reservoir so the flood water in the road which was quite deep and affecting traffic could drain away.
May is another month when we are busy with survey work of all types at the western end of the reservoir. This included checking the numerous bird nest boxes, flora surveys, grass snake & small mammal refugia tin survey. Whillet’s also has regular butterfly & dragonfly surveys.
Our pondlet at the study area had become over vegetated with starwort water weed some had to be suitably raked out to make a little open water. We also controlled the invasive Hemlock Water Dropwort (HWD) from the nearby marsh pool and cut back further HWD and bramble from our common spotted orchid area. We also installed a sonic alarm to reduce fallow deer browsing damage to the orchids.
We trimmed the hedge tops at all our West End wildlife public viewpoints.
We carry out survey work over all the reservoir, wildlife surveys and habitat checks were carried out at the main dam end side of the reservoir. At the North Bank side, we surveyed from the dam right up to the picnic area. Where we also carried out hedge cutting and repairs to the vandalised hedge within the picnic area and generally tidied the picnic area and cleared the rubbish.
Along South Bank we surveyed and cleared access paths all the way from Admirals Wood right down as far as the new Reed-bed area where we surveyed around the reed-bed area itself.
May 26th
A few of us enjoyed an enjoyable walk from the car park all the way to the new reed bed on the south bank today.
It took 2hrs to get there due to stops to trim back bramble, nettle etc encroaching onto the paths plus a few stops for birds, butterflies and damselflies. The return was only around an hour.
Highlights were finding plenty of reeds now getting established with the bonus of two pairs of Reed Warblers and a Reed Bunting nesting there.
We also found a few dragon and damselfly species including Red-eyed Damselfly for the first time this year and Black-tailed Skimmers in several locations.
Below are some images from the day
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23rd June 2026 seen by Linsey Gooding
West End:- 104 x Greylag Goose, 14 x Canada Goose, 2 x Mute Swan, 2 x Egyptian Goose, 5 x Mandarin Duck, 11 x Mallard, 6 x Common Woodpigeon, 1 x Lesser Black-backed Gull, 9 x Common Tern, 16 x Great Crested Grebe, 15 x Great Cormorant, 5 x Grey Heron, 1 x Red Kite, 2 x Carrion Crow, 2 x Eurasian Blue Tit, 2 x Common Reed Warbler, 1 x Barn Swallow, 2 x Common Chiffchaff, 1 x Long-tailed Tit, 1 x Common Whitethroat
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22nd June 2026 seen by Alastair Gray (via WhatsApp)
Butterfly survey at Whillets.
Comma 2
Green veined White 6
Large Skipper 21
Large White 3
Marbled White 3
Meadow Brown 96
Painted Lady 4
Red Admiral 2
Ringlet 57
Small Skipper 16Also my first Brown Hawker of the year,Hen pheasant with 2+ chicks.