Quality migrants!

Hello

Plenty of excitement in the county today as quality migrants arrived at a variety of locations and with Summer Leys LNR buzzing with birding activity!

Matt Hazleton found the bird of the day after picking out a male Kentish Plover on Gull Island at Summer Leys LNR. This species is now regarded as a British Rarity as the numbers in the UK have dropped away during the last two decades, and it is a particularly rare bird inland. A White Stork was spotted flying west along the Nene Valley at Ditchford Pits and it lingered over Summer Leys LNR and finally landed in a field between the old railway line and Great Doddington village showing nicely this afternoon.

Other birds on the reserve included four Common Terns, a Sedge Warbler and a Grasshopper Warbler with a Green Sandpiper at the nearby Quarry North workings.

Five Oystercatchers, seven Sedge Warblers and twelve Common Terns were at Thrapston Pits today and Clifford Hill Pits yielded a Greenshank and three Wheatears.

Out to the west two Ring Ouzels were found in horse paddocks on the north side of Borough Hill Country Park and two adult Kittiwakes were at Daventry Country Park. Stanford Reservoir attracted all three hirundines and an increasing number of early season warblers plus seven Yellow Wagtails.

A male Common Redstart was subsinging in hedgerows leading down to the flooded fields from Hillmorton Lane at Lilbourne Meadows reserve and other birds on the reserve included two Oystercatchers, two Little Ringed Plovers and song-flighting Meadow Pipits with up to two more pairs of Little Ringed Plover and a pair of Shelduck on the adjacent DIRFT/A5 pools.

A male Common Redstart was showing nicely at Honey Hill, Cold Ashby this morning in hedging on the sloping sheep fields on the right hand side when entering along the Jurassic Way footpath from the Cold Ashby road. Later in the day a Ring Ouzel was located a little further off the footpath on the left hand side rummaging around the edges of a bean field, hedging and sloping grass area. A Raven was heard here too.

Two Common Redstarts (a male and a female) were in the traditional field hedge paralleling the Scaldwell Bay boundary fence at Pitsford Reservoir between the Maytrees and Bird Club hides at 7.15am this morning, with a number of Yellow Wagtails off the dam. The Black-necked Grebe and Red-breasted Mergansers of yesterday could not be found. A calling Cuckoo and over a hundred Fieldfares were at Lamport Hall this morning.

Regards

Neil M

Kentish Plover courtesy
of Matt Hazleton.

White Stork courtesy
of Jim Dunkley.

Some of the grazing stock
at Lilbourne Meadows reserve!