Cold and murky Monday

Hello 

A cold and murky day with difficult visibility this morning and again late afternoon.

The Great Northern Diver played hide and seek in the fog at Pitsford Reservoir but then showed very well off the dam.

Mark tried hard to locate his Siberian Chiffchaff at Hollowell Reservoir today but it wasn't found, but there was an adult Caspian Gull, the female Ruddy Shelduck and a Crossbill. Stanford's birds included the four wintering Black-necked Grebes, a Great White Egret and a noteworthy adult Kittiwake.

The Nene Valley today provided views of five Cattle Egrets at the east end of Stanwick Pits and at least twelve White-fronted Geese and two Great White Egrets were visible from Summer Leys LNR.

The Welland Valley is also very flooded and although the Bewick's Swans were not seen in the valley between Gretton and Rockingham today, other birds included three Shelduck, large numbers of Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Shovelers and Mallard, two hundred Lapwings, three Dunlin, hundreds of large gulls, flocks of Black-headed Gulls, Fieldfares and Starlings and a flock of over eighty-five Pied Wagtails.

Similar species of wildfowl were present on the floods at Harringworth together with more Lapwings and a female Peregrine.

Not far away and Deene Lake hosted two Egyptian Geese, three Shelducks and a pair of Stonechats with twenty-four Mandarin Ducks, two Little Egrets, a Water Rail, a Kingfisher and a Cetti's Warbler  all at Blatherwycke Lake.

Fineshade Wood provided a surprise in the shape of a Water Rail on the disused railway line; more typical birds were two or three Woodcock, four Redpolls and about twenty Crossbills. On the opposite side of the A43, Wakerley Wood hosted thirty flighty Crossbills, about fifty Siskins and two Woodcock.

A Water Rail, four Snipe and a Grey Wagtail were at Brixworth Treatment Works this morning and the bird/nectar crop in the Brampton Valley below Hanging Houghton was full of birds including up to two hundred Linnets plus Reed Buntings, Yellowhammers, Chaffinches and a pair of Stonechats.

Regards

Neil M

Water Rail courtesy
of Robin Gossage.

Peregrine courtesy of
Robin Gossage.

Male Pied Wagtail.