Thursday 26 September 2019

Birds of the breeze and sunshine...

Hello

I popped down to Pitsford reservoir this morning and spent a couple of hours collecting seed and restocking the Old Scaldwell Road Feeding Station. Whilst there I scanned around to see what was on offer, there were certainly plenty of Tufted Ducks with rafts of them close to the Maytrees Hide. Many more flocks arrived from south of the causeway and the overall number must have been close to a thousand birds. Tomorrow is the WeBS count so we will see how many we count!

A Great White Egret was fishing in the Scaldwell Bay which also hosted a Common Sandpiper, four Pintail and four Yellow-legged Gulls. The moderate to strong breeze and broken sunshine was perfect for raptors and other larger birds to cruise about, to the point where it was hard to leave as there was always another new bird on the horizon to look at. At least a dozen Common Buzzards and six Red Kites showed on and off and two Hobbies were hunting dragonflies around the leeward side of the trees. Two Ravens and other corvids joined in the fun! In the meantime Neil Hasdell had located a Greenshank and three Ringed Plovers at the dam and Moulton Grange Bay shoreline.

A revisit to Pitsford this evening to count the roosting gulls, this time up at the Sailing Club, provided distant views of a second winter Mediterranean Gull and twelve Yellow-legged Gulls but nothing else of note. A pair of Raven were again very obvious in Hanging Houghton village today.

The weekly visit by local naturalists to the MOD section of Yardley Chase paid off today with the discovery of two Pied Flycatchers (this is strictly a private site). At Summer Leys/Earls Barton Pits, birds included a Great White Egret, a Green Sandpiper, a Ringed Plover, a Hobby and a Pintail, and yesterday's Little Stint was still present at Boddington Reservoir today...

Regards

Neil M


Common Buzzard.

Red Kite.

Hobby (with House Martin).

Raven.

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