St Aiden's rspb Swillington

White Rose shopping today was followed nicely by a long walk around the perimeter of St Aiden's RSPB Nature Reserve, Swillington.

Quite a tiring outing on a very mild but very dull kind of day.

'Masses' of birds here as you would expect but Waders (for me anyway) were difficult to come by.

I did a bit better with the Ducks and I was sure that I'd see the smaller Grebe Species but unfortunately I did not bump into any. 

(Maybe I should have enquired of the small Grebe sp. whereabouts before I left the visitors centre - dipped on the Little Owl as well - as if). 

Sue's patience held out until 3/4 of the way around when she opted to leg it to the café to leave me to wander slowly along.

It was nearly 4pm when we left, and we came home via Dewsbury, which proved to be a good move, missing the M62 roadworks today.

Going by previous visits here, this was not one of my better efforts.

Serves me right, I should stay local and await a mega.

 Birds:-

h=heard.

Blackcap(h).

Black Headed Gull.

Reed Bunting - very obliging many singing and showing well.

Chiffchaff (h).

Coot.

Cormorant.

Gadwall.

Great Crested Grebe.

Heron,

Herring Gull.

Canada Goose.

Greylag Goose.

Kestrel.

Lesser Black-backed Gull.

Lapwing.

Mute Swan.

Mallard.

Moorhen.

Sand Martin.

Oystercatcher.

Pochard.

Redshank.

Reed Warbler (h).

Sedge Warbler (h).

Shelduck.

Stock Dove.

Shoveler.

Swallow.

Swift (most I've every seen in UK).

Tufted Duck.

Whitethroat(h).

Willow Warbler.

and a few other common sp.

A few (mostly poor) photos:-