Tittesworth Reservoir

Tittesworth reservoir lies a few miles from Leek in Staffordshire, a few more miles from Stoke on Trent. It is operated by Severn-Trent water, serving the Midlands, and, as is the case with many reservoirs, they allow part of the surrounding area to be managed for the benefit of wildlife. in the shadow of the Roaches, It became a rather wonderful birding surprise when I visited last week with Natty. 

A breeze and a dark grey sky greeted us in the morning, and the weather dictated there would be few exciting butterfly sightings today.  From the bus stop we made a substantial walk down a fast country road, past the sad remains of a squashed Brown Hare, on which a couple of Carrion Crows were feeding. The first area we reached when we arrived at the site was wooded.  A river, feeding the reservoir, meandered through the trees. The first bird we encountered was a Song Thrush, perched on top of a hawthorn shrub. It was singing, with the characteristic repetition of phrases typical of the species.  The river itself caught my eye, and sure enough a pair of Grey Wagtails were busily feeding and chasing each other over the shallow water.   These charismatic little birds seem to me to turn up wherever there is water, indeed I have seen them in litter filled storm drains in suburban centres, but only a few moments later a more unusual riverside passerine presented itself. A Dipper flew off the bank not far from where we were standing and alighted on a stone a few metres downstream. Dippers are very scarce here in the South East, and all my encounters with them have been in the North West and Midlands. 

The Hawthorn had just begun to flower in Staffordshire, the progression of the seasons perhaps a couple of weeks behind down South, on account of the slight change in latitude and altitude compared with Essex, and we could still see well up into the tree canopy, not yet closed by leaf burst. The ground was a little muddy, and the river flow quite powerful on account of the recent rain. The scratchy calls of whitethroats and repetitious songs of chiffchaffs dominated. A small passerine which alighted in front of me came as something of a surprise. It was black and white, a Pied Flycatcher! They seemed to be surprisingly common around the area! There was a female there too, and she was quite photogenic, hanging around for several seconds. A  couple of swifts hurtled over our heads on their constant pursuit of flying insects. 

Pied Flycatcher.

As we neared the reservoir the river widened and we moved into an area of wet scrubland. A bird with a bright, salmon pink underside and a white rump could only be a Bullfinch, and on closer inspection a pair were fluttering from branch to branch among the alders which grew out of the shallow water. There were Reed Buntings here too, smart marshland birds, apparently at home in the wet woodland. Singing on a branch which hung over the path was a Garden Warbler, a bird with which I am none too familiar. The Garden Warbler is a bird of scrubland like this, and not a common garden visitor in this country, contrary to the name. It is about as plain a bird as one can imagine, grey-brown on its back with a diagnostic grey marking on the side of its neck. I’d met a single passage bird at Chafford Gorges a few weeks back, but here the species seemed to be flourishing, and there were many!  As the wet woodland gave way to open water, we saw some Tufted ducks and Moorhens, nothing but the usual, on the water. We elected to turn round and stop on a conveniently placed picnic bench for lunch. Quite what perched on top of a nearby shrub and looked at us and darted off into the undergrowth remains a mystery, but it was perhaps a little bigger than a robin, had a rich brown back, a pale chest, and few distinctive markings. There appeared to be a slight white ring around its eye. I called it a Nightingale, but when submitting records to the BTO later I was told that the species was a local rarity, and had my ID queried, so now I am no longer so confident. If it had sung, I would have been confident, but it just watched as I nearly dropped my sandwich and fumbled around with the binoculars before vanishing.

A singing Garden Warbler

We wandered back to the council run visitors centre which, to our disappointment, seemed mostly a fund raising exercise, with no relevant information and no sightings board. The volunteer or member of staff on duty could only suggest we found one of the reserve wardens whilst on our walk to tell us about what had recently been seen. Perhaps it is better sometimes to go out onto a reserve with no expectations.

Our first stop involved crossing the country lane, to where a small area of water had been designated a nature reserve by the water company. The Roaches, rocky hills covered in moorland vegetation, relic patches of a once larger network, stood out before us. We found a small hide overlooking the water, which initially looked barren. A moorhen picked about in the shallows and there were a couple of coots on the water. The sky was beginning to look grey and threatening.  A small bird appeared from behind the island, which we decided was a Ringed Plover, on the basis of their posture, they are more rotund and hunched than the very similar Little Ringed Plover. Another small brown wading bird then presented itself, with a distinct flight pattern appeared and also landed on the island. It would flap very rapidly, and then glide, wingtips lowered in an inverted V, a little like a Harrier jump jet and completely unlike a Harrier. This is another migratory species which is often spotted around ponds, throughout Britain, at this time of year, a common sandpiper, and the unique flight pattern is diagnostic.  An Oystercatcher too sat hunched on the island, and before long a handsome lapwing flew in, mewing, to join it.  At one point, three handsome curlews, birds emblematic of the Staffordshire Moorlands landed. These are big birds, easily dwarfing the other waders, and have declined substantially as the moors on which they breed have shrunk. The land about us, aside from the scrappy Heather and Bilberry on the roaches, was farmland, “improved” pasture grazed by cattle, but here were the birds in their ancestral home. Being familiar with Curlews as very much a winter bird of coastal habitats, it was a pleasant change to see them inland, even if the habitat had been ripped from under them.  As we watched them, the rain began to drum on the roof of the hide.

The roaches, and an angry sky.

We walked back, past the visitors centre, past more whitethroats and thrushes and blackbirds, and under swifts and swallows, which had descended to pursue insects over the water as the rainfall purged the clouds of bugs from the air.   Hirundines and swifts characteristically gather over water in wet and windy conditions. Natty and I, however, pressed on. We noticed, as we walked beside the water, that there was a distinct lack of water birds on the reservoir itself, aside from the typical Canada Geese, Tufties and Mallards, many of the latter semi-feral with white blotches and markings betraying a farmyard history. I think such “hybrid” mallards are very pretty, but they are hardly exciting. A couple of Great Crested Grebes were more like it, and these could be seen swimming well out in the water.

The path took us away from the water’s edge, and the rain continued to fall as we made our way down a muddy track, past a field of improved grass and thoroughly miserable looking cows. A glance into the trees we past revealed long tailed  tits, another garden warbler, and a singing Willow Warbler, but nothing new. It was quite a relief when the uninspiring vista of mud and electric fencing gave way to the dam which marked the end of the reservoir, the length of which we had now walked. It was down some steps and through some pines, along the length of the dam, and up again into a pine plantation. Elderly, sweet smelling Scots Pines formed a dense canopy, and among their trunks dead trees rested on their living neighbours. A goldcrest alighted in front of us, looked around startled, and disappeared. There were a couple of Jays in the trees too.  As we walked through the woods, occasionally catching glances of the water beside us, we startled a large raptor, which disappeared over the water and into a cluster of trees opposite. It’s back was a ragged brown, and there seemed to be white markings on the underside but from my angle I couldn’t tell; it was the bird that got away. Buzzards are not uncommon in Staffordshire but Ospreys are also known to visit Tittesworth Water in spring and autumn, and one was recorded just a few days later. Whether we saw it first, it seems, we will never know.    

Another view of Tittesworth Reservoir.

  

The reservoir still had more treats in store for us. After getting overexcited about a Mistle Thrush, possibly mobbing some unseen mammal in the grass, and having almost completed our circumnavigation of the lake, we saw a small flock of finches leaving the grass. Most of them were pretty little goldfinches, flashing bright yellow wing bars as they took off into a tree, but some were plainer, and speckled. Lesser Redpolls are a breeding bird in Britain, but I am used to seeing them in the winter as they, in the company of other finches, nibble at catkins and other fruiting bodies on woodland trees. Here were, presumably, British breeding redpolls amid a flock of Goldfinches in mid May.  Also in the trees beside the lake, as if wires had yet to be invented, were a number of very hunched, damp and moody looking Barn Swallows. There were still many swifts and hirundines, including house and sand martins, wheeling about over the water, but these specimens had obviously thought it better to rest than spend their energy on thin pickings of insects over the water.  Even on such a grey day, the iridescence of their black-blue backs of the birds at rest was more obvious than it would be when they were in flight.

The tree of Swallows

We met a young family of ducks, as we both began looking forward to getting indoors and out of the rain. A sleek, brown-headed, largely grey duck with a fine chestnut crest, which any old school punk would be proud of, led a brood of ten black and white ducklings away from the bank and into open water. At one point some of the little ducklings even hitched a ride on their mothers back, like Grebes.  They were of the fish eating “sawbill” type, and again I had to check the Collins, but the sharp definition between the females’ chestnut head and grey body, and the small, white patch on her chin identified her as a Goosander. These are remarkable, exotic looking ducks with much lighter beaks than those of the dabbling and ducks which are so familiar. This family were shy, the mother clearly anxious to lead the ducklings away from us, and further into open water, so I resisted the temptation to stay and watch them for longer as, with the conditions and the known presence of a large raptor, making them nervous was only putting them at risk.

Viewed through some inconvenient marginal vegetation, the Goosander family.

Although it had been an incredibly good day of rain-soaked birding, we appreciated the warmth and a cup of tea when we got back to Natty’s house and dried off!