Monday 17th July 2017.

Both myself and fellow wildlife photographer Graham Breeze had seen  the same photographs on the social media late last week of a Spoonbill at the Tophill Low Nature Reserve. We have just had a pair of Spoonbills nesting and rearing a family at the reserve at Fairburn recently, but that aside, after a successful visit a couple of weeks ago photographing their Kingfishers and Little Egrets we arranged to visit the Tophill Low reserve today to see if we could find the Spoonbill. It took us just about a one hours drive this morning to get to the reserve, that is until I very nearly drove over a Grass snake as I turned off the main Driffield road into the reserve, it was a lovely warm sunny morning and the snake had been enjoying the early morning heat coming off the tarmacked road surface, checking my rear view mirror I watched as it slid off the road and back into the relative safety of the undergrowth at the side of the road.

It was just after 9.00am as we purchased our tickets to enter the reserve, for a change it was nice to be able to walk round with a short sleeved shirt on rather than layered up like I was on our last visit. The wardens were just opening the doors to the new visitors centre as we arrived, so we popped in for a chat and had a good look around. The viewing gallery looks superb and offers great views across the reservoir which should come into its own when the Autumnal Waders start to arrive in a few months’ time. 

It is a good five minute walk from the centre to the first of the hides we visited today the‘North Marsh hide’.  When we arrived there was a couple of photographers already set up in there and they told us that they had had some good sightings of the Kingfishers, (no Spoonbill)  so we were hopeful for the same. 

The wardens had told us earlier that the second brood of Kingfisher chicks had fledged earlier this morning, so fingers crossed we should get some nice sightings. It wasn’t long before we could hear a pair calling to each other in a Willow tree to the right of the hide. A few minutes later the male bird started fishing directly in front of the hide, he made two dives one after the other in quick succession, the first dive was unsuccessful, the second dive was more rewarding as he returned with a Stickleback, after what seemed like a minute of mouthing this small fish, tapping its head on the perch and generally manoeuvring the fish in its beak he swallowed the fish head first. This same bird stayed on the same perch and a few moments later dived and returned with another fish and promptly swallowed that too. We had a good hour in the hide watching both male and female Kingfishers fishing along the small stream in front of the hide.

As time moved on we decided to have a look at the other hides around the ‘D’ reservoir. By now the sun was shining quite brightly and the temperature had risen to the mid-twenties, it was very warm, especially when you are carrying a significant amount of camera gear on your back, and a tripod. After a ten minute walk or so we arrived at the Hempholme Hide, we know the Kingfisher had fledged earlier today but after ten minutes or so without any sighting  we decided to head back and have a look around the South Marshes hide, adjacent to the ‘O’ reservoir. It was a steady fifteen minute walk through the woodland to the South Marsh hide, a ‘new’ footpath had been laid when the new centre was built which means you don’t have to walk back to the car park, thus this new path cuts a bit of the distance between the hides. We normally get some nice photographs here, it was from this hide that we saw the Otter last year, along with several Kingfishers and Little Egrets. By now the temperature had got really hot to such an extent that you could burn your hand on the shelves inside the hide, they were that hot. We counted at least seven Little Egrets around the water’s edge and on the marshes. There were lots of Geese and several Grey Heron on the water but still no sign of the Spoonbill. After about thirty minutes the heat became quite unpleasant, to such an extent our camera bodies were getting a little hotter than I would have liked, so with the time just after lunch time we decided to head back to the centre. Before we arrived we called in at another hide  near the lagoons, it was in a bit of shade but very little bird life, we could hear some frogs and toads croaking by the water’s edge, I put my camera gear back into the rucksack prior to the walk back to the car and just as we were about to leave the hide a Grass snake, about eighteen inches long came heading towards us gliding across the top of the water at quite a speed, Graham managed a couple of pictures but alas, my camera was securely packed away in its case so I had no chance of a picture. It was a steady five minute walk back to the centre and the car. Another great day at Tophill Low.