Northamptonshire Birding: Pitsford WeBs Count

Hello

Today was taken up completing the monthly count of water-birds present at Pitsford Reservoir.

Three or four Great White Egrets were again present - it still has not been possible to see all suspected four birds at the same time! One showed particularly well just off the causeway this afternoon, causing a small gathering of curious on-lookers taking photos. Possibly as many as 15 Little Egrets were present.

Good numbers of waterfowl were present, the highlights being 11 Goosanders, a drake Smew (Holcot Bay), a Black-necked Grebe (near yacht club), 10 Pintail and 24 Red-crested Pochard (plus an extraordinary drake RC Pochard x Mallard hybrid)! Less authentic species included the Bar-headed Goose still and three Black Swans.

Waders were well-represented - a single Black-tailed Godwit, 4-5 Redshank, 40 Snipe, a Grey Plover and a Common Sandpiper.

Other birds included an adult female Peregrine, an adult Yellow-legged Gull, two Kingfishers, 12 redpoll sp, a couple of Siskins, a Grey Wagtail and a Chiffchaff. One of the adult Great Black-backed Gulls present has learnt to catch fish by diving in to the shallows in a similar manner to a Gannet - the Scaldwell Bay is its usual fishing haunt.

One of the many Little Grebes present suffered predation in the jaws of a large Pike in the Pintail Bay - probably a regular but rarely witnessed event. The Little Grebe clearly saw the underwater predator because it was sounding the alarm and tried to take evasive action but to no avail.

Regards

Eleanor & Neil