Water Reservoir Won Award Wild Birds Haven

Thames  Water's  work  to attract such a wide range of birds to Farmoor and other wetland areas includes the creation of reedbeds and shallow scrapes. A wheelchair trail at Farmoor, to help all visitors enjoy viewing wildlife, was also recently completed.

Rare  birds  spotted at Farmoor - fast becoming a mecca for bird watchers - include  the  Bonaparte's Gull, Sabine's Gull, Purple Heron, Grey Phalarope and Arctic Skua.

In 2007, 600 birdwatchers flocked to Farmoor after an American Buff-belliedPipit  was spotted feeding at the water's edge - the first-ever sighting of the  bird at an inland location in the UK. Until then it had only ever been sighted   around  20  times  in  Britain  at  coastal  locations.  Although migratory, the pipit normally travels no further than the southern Atlantic or Pacific coasts of America, with flights to Europe extremely rare.

In  London  in  2007,  the  equally  rare  Squacco  Heron  was spotted in a newly-created  bird  scrape  at  the  Southern  Marshes  at  Thames Water's Crossness  Nature  Reserve.  It  was  the first sighting of the bird in the capital  for more than 140 years. Until then, the last reported sighting in the Greater London area was in 1866 at Kingsbury Reservoir in Middlesex.