I may be at the early stages of planning next year’s Year List, but I still have a need to go birding NOW of course. I think I’ve been a little dismissive of the “common” birds round where I live but Corey’s recent trip to Germany - and the comments his posts inspired - have shown me just how short-sighted I’ve become. Just because Robins, Great and Blue Tits, Yellowhammers, Pochards, Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls etc are two-a-penny here doesn’t mean that readers of 10,000 Birds wouldn’t be interested in seeing them. So, from now on, I’ll do my best to report on the (occasional) birding trips I make on my home turf - starting with an afternoon two days ago (November 2nd) at one of the largest reservoirs in the south of the UK - Chew Valley…

Chew Valley looking from the Stratford Hide

Chew Valley is an enormous semi-natural, man-made lake built primarily to provide water for the nearby city of Bristol. Construction of the dams and walls started in November 1950 and took just over five years to complete. Sixteen farm houses, eleven other houses and 2,000 acres (480 hectares) of land were bought up and flooded. Three and a half miles of road were diverted or widened, and there is excellent access to most of the Lake - if you have a car (walking around it would take all day).

Chew Valley looking from the Stratford Hide
Like to hear a 30 second sound-file taken from this hide? Click right here

Reed bed by Herriott’s Bridge

Fill a valley with water and it doesn’t take long before waterfowl and gulls arrive to replace the displaced thrushes and larks: over 260 species of birds have now been recorded here, and the lake is (apparently) the third most important site in Britain for wintering duck (with especially good numbers of Pochard, Tufted Duck, and Mallard) and as many as 400 Great-crested Grebes in the autumn. Sections of the lake have been designated as a Nature Reserve and efforts to establish a reed-bed along the fringes of the lake have paid off and Bearded Tits sometimes breed now along with Water Rails and Cetti’s Warblers. Gulls love the place of course, and the mid-winter roost here can see as many as 40,000 of the bread-guzzling beasts crowding the water. And it’s all within twenty miles of my house!

1st winter (top) and adult non-breeding
Black-headed Gulls Larus ridibundus

This November is proving to be ridiculously mild (I heard a Skylark singing a few miles from my house the other day which is just silly - lovely but silly), so most winter visitors are not here in large numbers (there are Fieldfares in good numbers in the surrounding countryside, but not much else). Chew was still worth a visit though, with hundreds of common ducks on the water and “common” species like Jackdaws, Rooks, and Pied Wagtails on the accessible concrete edges of the lake.

Tufted Ducks Aythya fuligula

As well as the aforementioned duck species I saw Northern Pintail, Common Teal, Gadwall, Ruddy Duck (introduced in the south-west large numbers are on Chew some years) and poor views of a rarity, a Ferruginous Duck that when it wasn’t sleeping appeared to be hiding underwater it was so difficult to see (and photograph). Of less interest to the vast majority of birders I would imagine, Chew is also where I first decided I wanted to catalogue “Manky Mallards” - and once again the site proved its excellence for these anatid oddities, and amongst several weird and wonderful Mallards I found this one: quite striking I reckon…

One more “Manky Mallard” for the collection…

Whilst most of the ducks snoozed in the sun or drifted around in quiet flocks, the mild weather was definitely having an effect on the local Coots. Aggressive and argumentative at the best of times, hormone levels amongst the males seemed to be at springtime highs and there was a great deal of argy-bargying taking place. Much of it was of the “handbags at dawn” sort (lots of front, but not much fighting), but occasionally the feet came up and they’d would charge at each other like footballers in a pub team determined to rake their studs down their opponents’ legs. All good stuff from a photographic point of view, and as no blood was drawn probably little more than a harmless release of tension for the Coots…(the birds in the background of the lower photo are Pochards, Northern Lapwings, and a Great Cormorant by the way).

Eurasian/Black Coots Fulica atra: first there were four, then three, then two…

Back at an area called Herriot’s Bridge (one of the more popular lay-bys is on this bridge: visitors pour an unending stream of old bread down the gullets of the gulls an ducks that hang about here and there’s often an ice-cream van parked up for sugar-deprived birders) I took a few more photos of gulls before realising I had a serious problem with my lens (one day soon everything will work properly I hope) which meant the focussing was out. Here are a few more of the better ones I took anyway, including what looks like a photo-montage but is actually just the typical behaviour of Common Gulls when they see one of their colleagues trying to get away with a stale crust…

1st winter Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus

Common Gulls Larus canus

It was nice out get out in some decent weather I can tell you, and even finding out when I got home that I’d missed the county’s first ever Glossy Ibis, which had flown by the very hide I’d left just twenty minutes before, didn’t change that. Oh, who am I kidding, I was really p****d off, damn it. Oh well, maybe next time my luck will be in…

If you’re visiting Chew you will need to pick up a permit to visit the hides: these are readily available on the day at both Woodford Lodge (annual and day permits) and the Tea Shop (day permits only) and take just a minute or two to pick up. Sneaking into the hides is easy enough, but considering that the fee for the day is just £2.50/$5.00 and that local birders have worked long and hard to improve facilities here that would be a rather shameful thing to do wouldn’t it?

Talking of local birders, for a regularly updated and generously illustrated website on the birds of Chew Valley check out Rich Andrews’ impressive labour-of-love at CVL Birding.

All photographs taken with a Canon 40D, and copyright Charlie Moores