Ringstone Circular Walk

We had to drop some things off at White Windows, for Emma, this morning - no access yet though.

Afterwards we decided to attempt a circular walk near Ringtone Reservoir.

Walk: 

We walked down the road with the reservoir on our left and ignoring the early track on the left, opted for the next, signposted track on the left.

A good concrete road is soon met and followed through a couple of heavy gates.

Eventually the path arrives at the north west corner of the reservoir.

A car was parked here and a man approached us from the right on a narrow mown path. Assuming the mown path was the way to go we headed down it for a short distance before the man shouted to tell us that this was the flyers field and we were not on a public footpath.

He explained where the public footpath was, so, following his advice, we retraced our steps to the heavy gate, then took a left before the gate, and followed this wall as it dropped down, through very high grass. The path then turned right and then left, with the wall to eventually arrive at another heavy gate.

Here the path dropped down to meet the path that Sue had walked last time I was here birding and she went for her exercise walk.

A left turn here leads unerringly back to the reservoir.

Looking at the OS map, at home I am still unsure about the actual route of the paths. 

There are lots of paths on the map but very few helpful signs on the deck!

With the recent lockdown and so many people out walking I'm sure there will have been lots of 'wrong turnings'.

There is no path shown on the OS going NW beyond the reservoir embankment, although people were walking here.

Another hot day for walking and we did not stop often, so the birding suffered a bit anyway:-

Birds:

Reservoir Area:

Probably 4 distant Tufted Duck on the reservoir although one bird is difficult to ID - possibly asleep.

2 Black Headed Gull.

4 Pied Wagtail (2 juv).

Along the walk:

Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Mistle Thrush, Curlew.

Linnet, Calling Whitethroat.

Kestrel, Juv Pied Wagtail.

A House Martin flew quickly past (accompanied by 2 other Martin type birds but I did not ID them properly).

 Rare birds for me House Martin.

Tufted Duck foreground.

Background bird - not too sure.