Penduline Tit - Horsbere Flood Alleviation Pool, Brockworth, Gloucester 1st February

Sarah, Tobias and I were back at the cottage at Cowley for the weekend so I couldn't resist popping down to the Horsbere Flood Alleviation, only 15 minutes away, to see two male Penduline Tit that had been present since 11th January. These birds were the second record for Gloucestershire, the first being a single observer record of a female at Dyrham Park near Bath on 11th March 2015. The birds showed well today (although a little distant for the camera) but kept low in the Greater Reedmace and were not as showy as the Titchfield Haven birds that I had seen a couple of weeks ago. Much of their time was spent breaking open the stems of the Reedmace and, again, I saw them extracting small grubs that appeared to be beetle grubs. The birds were favouring the north-east corner of the pool but occasionally flew towards the Walls Building across the A417.