Tuesday 7 January 2020

SP54

Hello

Today the BOS Short Day Count was in the 10km square SP54, a little further south than SP55 but still fully enclosed in the county of Northamptonshire.

We started in the Thenford area, the more interesting birds being an adult male Peregrine, a few Siskins, a Kingfisher and a covey of 14 or so Grey Partridges. We then zigzagged around the South Northants villages and country roads, stopping and checking areas of interest. The list went up steadily and we saw most of the birds you would normally anticipate in this part of the world. However we only saw some relatively common birds just once in the day e.g. Reed Bunting, Bullfinch, Marsh Tit etc.

Wildfowl featured well in the Edgecote/Trafford Bridge area, the best being three Shovelers and two drake Mandarin Ducks, but also a flock of 51 Mute Swans was a high number locally. We failed to find any Tree Sparrows, Willow Tits or Lesser Redpolls but saw some more Siskins, a couple of Bramblings, a few Ravens and far more Red Kites than I have ever seen in this square before. At least one Kingfisher was at Trafford Bridge, we tracked down just a single Grey Wagtail and found three Marsh Tits at Edgecote. No owls were recorded during the eight hour stint and Reed Bunting was the last new species we encountered.

Regards

Neil M


House Sparrow.

Coal Tit.

Kestrel.

Good numbers of all three
of these species were present
in SP54 today...

Images courtesy of
Robin Gossage.

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