Scozmo's Photery

Six weeks to be reasonably precise, August 6th was my last visit to Backwater reservoir and I was getting anxious 🙂

That said, the Summer months can be worth avoiding up there, wild campers, swimmers, paddle boarders etc. sometimes flock to places like this so, I stay away, especially at the weekends.

A fine example of the aftermath, this has been lying on the far bank for weeks now, I guess there’s no-one to pick it up, despite the car park a few hundred feet above this spot, where bins get emptied. I keep forgetting to go over with some trash bags but this disgusts me, why do some people do it?

Anyway, the walk. There were no cars in the car park, a good sign. The key was overcast, a good stiff breeze blowing but I’d got a long sleeved T-shirt, thin fleece and a waterproof jacket on with a woolly hat in reserve in a pocket so, off I went, up the usual trail.

It was a very quiet walk so I enjoyed a faster walk up than usual, didn’t see anything of note at all, a few little brown things flitting here and there, that was it but, a great walk, clean, clear air and the sun popped through the cloud now and again.

I was almost at the picnic bench, just over a mile, when I spotted a lot of small bird activity right by it. I made my way slowly closer to see a large flock of Goldfinches diving into Thistle for the seeds, probably 100 or more, good to see.

They were mostly young birds and took off as soon as I got too close but, I caught a few together in a dead tree.

If you look closely you can see that very few have the red, black and white face yet.

I dropped a little food at the bench and carried on, through the first gate, still very little to report until …

A Jay! I don’t recall ever seeing one up here, maybe it followed me from the patch just to taunt me, they do that you know!!!! 😉

There was a flock of Canada Geese or two, maybe 20 birds, way over the other side, on the water, a few ducks, looked like Mallard and I did spot three female Goosander swimming along the far bank, I’ve stopped trying to get shots way over there, not worth it, even at 600mm. I also saw a few Cormorant scattered along the shore, resting up before heading out fishing.

You might notice there’s a lot of mud and rocks in that shot above.

All the dark mud you see and the shingle bank on the left should be under water, the muddy area in front of that dark tree line is usually water but it is dry now; not great but, we are heading into Winter so, here’s hoping.

I didn’t go much further but stood scanning the sky, I had spotted an Osprey earlier that then disappeared and there were a few Buzzards around.

Now that’s big! Way off in the distance I could see that bird followed by a few smaller ones. A White-tailed Eagle and Buzzard pals. Uncropped to relate the distance and size variation.

Uncropped and cropped, the same shot.

Proof it’s an Eagle?

Ok, we don’t often get to see them close up, they’re still pretty scattered here so it’s great to see one at all; there are Golden Eagles in this area but I am yet to see one.

While I was scanning, I lost the Eagle with one glance away, I spotted the Osprey I’d seen earlier. I’m assuming that as many of our Ospreys have started their journey to Africa already.

I was on my way back down the trail now, the sky was only getting darker, the wind getting up and spits of rain were telling me to move on.

I did spot a young Stonechat in their usual area.

I saw even more Goldfinches as I passed the picnic bench again and was on the final straight, sun shining again, four seasons in one day, that I spotted a Dragonfly ahead of me and where it landed.

I grabbed a couple of shots, inched forward, repeat ….

Unsure which species that is but I’ll update later when I get a response from iNaturalist 🙂

So that was my first visit to the reservoir for six weeks! Not great in a photography sense but, I really enjoyed the quiet and the walk, that’s what matters right?

I shall leave you today with a view of the dam and the low water level.

That’s a phone pic stitched using Bimostitch, which I find pretty good at pano stitching on the phone.