The dastardly Gremlins managed to waylay our summary of January’s trip to Dinton Pastures but, belatedly, it’s here! Apologies to Heather King who organised the trip and produced a brilliant write-up of a memorable morning.

Thank you to those who attended our birdwatching trip to Dinton Pastures on 31st January, we were very lucky with the morning weather where those rarest of things happened – the sun was out!


Our expert guides were Alan and Colin from the Wokingham & Bracknell RSPB group who kindly brought some scopes to give us great views and were set up in the car park on arrival so we could see redwings in the trees before we headed to the lakes. 


Luck was definitely with us on this trip because, on the way towards Tuftys Corner, Colin spotted a woodpecker high up at the top of a tree, then on the first lake we saw several cormorants and great crested grebes intermittently diving or semi hiding in the reeds. As we moved round a bend, there was a little egret right by the bank; we watched for a while until it was spooked and flew off to sit in a tree across the other side of the lake. Towards the back of the lake we could make out a group of tufted ducks and gadwells, and little further on we had another close encounter, this time a heron sitting so still by the bank. 

We had a quick detour across a bridge to a meadow which was deep in water so despite wellies we decided to just have a look and listen to the blue and great tits calling from the hedges. 

We went back to the lakes and saw wigeon – and then came the highlight of the day when an eagle-eyed member saw a kingfisher sitting in a tree on the opposite bank. The scopes were quickly deployed and gave us great views of the beautiful bird whose blue plumage shone like a jewel. As we headed back towards the car park several siskins were flitting about the tree line along the path. 

A very enjoyable morning bird spotting!