Birds of the cold

Hello

It may be the last of any significant snow this week but seemingly tonight is likely to be one of the coldest nights on record so please make sure your bird feeders are filled up in the morning ready for the hungry birds!

The drake Ring-necked Duck had switched pits at Ditchford Pits today, choosing the old Skew Bridge Pit next to the Rushden Lakes complex as it's water of choice. Other birds in the Nene Valley included five Dunlin on a flooded field next to Barnwell Country Park, the Bar-tailed Godwit still on the Main Lake at Stanwick Pits and a Pintail, a Chiffchaff and a Cetti's Warbler at Stortons Pits.

Summer Leys LNR was good for two Great White Egrets, two Shelduck, a Snipe, two Dunlin and a Water Rail showing by the feeding station. Further down the valley and Thrapston Pits entertained another Great White Egret, a Peregrine, two Oystercatchers and a Sparrowhawk subduing a Blackbird.

A Peregrine was again on the National Grid tower off St Peter's Way, Northampton, there were still four Bramblings at Harrington Airfield and Pitsford Reservoir was visited by a female Merlin flying north this afternoon (a rare bird there in recent years) and a pair of Mandarin Ducks in the Pintail Bay.

Blueberry Farm near Maidwell provided views of a Barn Owl and over thirty Meadow Pipits and fields there and into the Brampton Valley held hundreds of foraging Fieldfares. Also in the Brampton Valley between Blueberry and Hanging Houghton were nine Grey Partridges, ten Tree Sparrows, two Barn Owls, four Stonechats, twenty five Golden Plovers and sixty Lapwings.

Regards

Neil M

Dunlin.

Peregrine.

Water Rail - in the 
thick mud!