ON Wednesday, May 27 members had a nice relaxing session at the Woolston Eyes.

Eight people turned up including a couple of late arrivals who had to leave their car at the barrier and walk in and were let onto the reserve by another late arrival – Chris.

There were lots of blackcaps calling, although other warblers were not as abundant.

The group spent most of its time in the centre hide watching large numbers of swifts and sand martins flying over the water with a smaller number of house martins and swallows.

Members heard several reed warblers calling from the reeds but were unable to identify birds they saw flitting about in the reeds.

Those watching saw a minimum of eight black-necked grebes that were all quite distant.

However towards the end of the visit they got a view of a pair of black-necked grebes with at least one chick on the back of one of the birds.

The grebes were picking insects off the water and feeding them to the chick.

There were a quite a few ducks on the water and all were surprised to see a pink-footed goose land on one of the small islands.

This is a bird that is usually only seen as a flyover at the Eyes. Late in the visit all the gulls went up and everyone wondered what had disturbed them.

One member picked up some movement in the reeds at the edge of the reed bed and out came a badger which was then startled and ran off.