Strong winds, colourful clouds and a Bittern!

Hello

The tail-end of yesterday's storm made today windy again but still very mild for the time of the year. With the shortest day now over we can begin to see a little more daylight from each day onwards!

A Bittern away from the Nene Valley in Northamptonshire is rare indeed and Ian's find of one at Fawsley Park today is definitely bird of the day! It was seen in flight and heard calling but not seen subsequently (there is plenty of reed/sedge cover for this bird to hide away).

Other birds were a bit few and far between today but Stanford Reservoir recorded an adult Caspian Gull and about one hundred and thirty Great Black-backed Gulls in the roost, two Pintail, a Goosander, a Great White Egret and a Chiffchaff.

Another Chiffchaff was along the Brampton Valley Way below Hanging Houghton this afternoon and Scotland Wood hosted a Raven and a couple of Siskins with at least a dozen Siskins at nearby Kelmarsh Hall. Another Raven was near Boughton and there were at least twenty Ring-necked Parakeets at Abington Park, Northampton this morning. Five Goosanders were at Stortons Pits today.

A small Starling murmuration and a pair of Goosanders were on offer at Summer Leys LNR with two Great White Egrets on nearby Mary's Lake. The Cattle Egret remained at Wicksteed Park Water Meadows LNR this morning.

Colourful high level Nacreous clouds seem to have been a feature up and down the country the last few days including locally.

Details have now come through of a colour-ringed Black-headed Gull seen at Pitsford Reservoir on 17th December 2023 (yellow ring with black inscription T2YX):-

This bird was first ringed at Gdansk-Jelitkowo, Zbiornik Jelitkowska, Pomorskie, Poland as a second calendar year bird on 8th March 2018. The distance between the two sites is 1308km with 2110 days elapsing between the two records.

Other sightings of this bird are of it 10km away from the ringing site just two days later on 10th March 2018, again in Poland on 9th July 2019 when it was 250km from where originally ringed and then two UK sightings of it at Grimsbury Reservoir, near Banbury, Oxfordshire on 4th July 2020 and at Pitsford Reservoir on 3rd December 2020. This six year old bird clearly winters in the English midlands but returns to breed in Poland.

Regards

Neil M

Goosander at Stortons
Pits today courtesy of
Tony Stanford.

Common Gull and Black-headed 
Gull courtesy of Tony Stanford.

Muntjac at Pitsford Reservoir
courtesy of Tony Stanford.

Grey Heron courtesy
of John Tilly.

Carrion Crow courtesy
of John Tilly.

Curlew courtesy of
John Tilly.