Up bright and early this morning. Yesterday had been a cold and wet day (I actually put the central heating on for the evening) and this morning didn’t seem much better,  it was a wet and damp dog walk on the Barff at 6.00am. After a quick breakfast I picked up my photography friend Graham Breeze from Selby and we drove over to the Yorkshire Water Reserve Tophill Low, near the village of Watton, on the outskirts of the small market town of Driffield arriving an hour later at just after 9.00am..

It was about twelve months ago since our last visit, at the time the new Visitors Centre  was just a mass of iron girders, today the building was complete and looked quite impressive. 

After purchasing our visitor tickets from the machine in the warden’s hut, we made our way on foot past the new centre and the ‘D reservoir’ to the North Marsh hide. The footpath was a bit slippy underfoot, but with all the rain we have had this last twenty four hours it wasn’t surprising. No rain was forecast today so fingers crossed. We were the first two in the hide this morning and opened the shutter windows to let some light and fresh air in. No sooner had we set up our camera gear then the first Kingfisher appeared, it flew along the line of the stream and landed on a tree branch about 30feet in front of the hide, on the water’s edge. It didn’t stay for long before it flew off downstream to another perch amongst the reed beds. What felt like just a few minutes another Kingfisher returned, this time to a different perch, shortly followed by a smaller Kingfisher, I presume its juvenile, within seconds the adult bird dived into the stream, returning with a small stickleback and after quite a ritual getting the fish the right way round in its mouth presented it to the younger bird. For the next two hours we were spoilt with these beautiful birds visiting us on a regular basis to various perches along the stream. As well as the Kingfishers the Moorhens were quite active too, it is the first time I have seen a moorhen climbing up a Bulrush to peel back the fibrous head of the plant, its beak covered in the yellow fibrous strands of the plant, they have huge feet which made it quite a clumsy climber but quite able when needed.

Just before lunch we ventured out of the hide and decided to have a look around the South Marsh adjacent to the ‘O reservoir’, this was where we saw the Otter last year. I was amazed at the number of Marsh Orchids on the path verges by the reservoir on the way to the South Marshes hide, they were all over the place. We set the gear up on arrival in the hide, there were lots of birds, Greylags, Mallards Black Headed and Common Gulls all making their fair share of noise on the far side between the ‘finger islands’, closer and left of  the hide was a Little Egret, contently scouring the shallow water for some food, the white sheen of its feathers producing a lovely reflection on the still water. It wasn’t long before a Kingfisher came and landed on the fence post to the left of the hide, it only stayed for a matter of seconds before flying off into the reed beds, shortly after it left though another Kingfisher arrived and hovered within a metre of the other bird before flying off, giving us some  great photo opportunities. By now time was marching on so we made our way back towards the car but adjacent to the reservoir were a pair of Roe deer grazing on the grass at the side of the footpath, needless to say as soon as they saw us they were off, heading straight into the security of the reed beds. 

A great day out and good journey home, now the job of editing several hundred pictures of Kingfishers!