Golden Plovers & 'little brown jobs'

Hello

Eleanor's almost daily excursions in to the Brampton Valley below Hanging Houghton finally provided two Wheatears this morning, plus about 150 Golden Plovers. The adjacent Blueberry Farm complex again provided views of a Woodcock and a Barn Owl.

Birds in the Daventry area included the usual pair of Raven at Staverton and Daventry Country Park hosted a female Peregrine, two House Martins, a Swallow and about twenty Sand Martins.

This afternoon a flock of 200 Golden Plovers were again in a bean field between Brixworth and Scaldwell and a further flock of 100 were near Walgrave. Like the winter thrushes, they are ganging up before they move on, using the fields of Northamptonshire as a migrating staging post.

The usual finches and buntings were feeding in our garden today and Jacob Spinks was busy at Pitsford Reservoir locating a Blackcap, the male Stonechat, c60 Sand Martins, a couple of Swallows, small numbers of Siskins and Lesser Redpolls, the Green Sandpiper, at least one Oystercatcher and of course the Ruddy Shelduck.

Regards

Neil M

Linnet

Wren

Dunnock

Reed Bunting

All the above images of 'little
brown jobs' were taken by Cathy
Ryden who has the knack of capturing
the habitat around the subject. The marshy
area of Brixworth Sewer Treatment
Works provides the perfect backdrop
for the last three birds...