Northants purple patch

The county has had some what of a purple patch over the last few days with some quality stuff finally turning up. Thursday saw the discovery of a Great Grey Shrike at Harrington airfield. As I was in Oxfordshire, I had to wait until first thing Friday (25/10) morning to go and see it. I arrived there in murky, drizzly conditions, however off I trudged along towards the first bunker. Around the first bunker it wasn't long before I noticed a long tailed blob on top of a small tree and a check with the bins confimed it to be the Great Grey Shrike. As typical of the species, it was highly mobile but I did enjoy some good views, however the photo won't be winning any competitions! There were lots of birds about, however the only other things of note were around 200 Golden Plover and several flyover Redpoll sp.

Yesterday morning (27/10) I headed over to Ditchford GPs to have a look at some gulls. At first they were a little thin on the ground, however before long really good numbers began to gather. I was pretty certain I had an adult Caspian Gull however within a second or two of me finding it, it vanished. The best things on show were somewhere between 5 and 10 Yellow Legged Gulls as well as 2 Egyptian Geese flying around. I then got a text swiftly followed by a phonecall to say there was a Hoopoe showing near Eydon, at my end of the bloody county....ahhhhhh!!

I ran back to the car as quickly as I could, which by the way nearly killed me!! I'd rang Sam and arranged to pick him up on the way, while Jon & Kirsty were on their way there. Felt well gutted for Dave however as he had family plans and couldn't get over there (thankfully he got to see it late in the day!)
We zoomed over there as quick as possible. Thankfully it showed immediately at real close quarters, fantasic my 3rd county Hoopoe! There were at least 15 people there, with a beaming Jon & Kirsty and the front of them! The bird was in the small car park area of the Brickhill Farm Fisheries between Eydon and Woodford Halse. We got brilliant views of the bird as he busied around, occasionally throwing up and catching a leather jacket. Was just great to watch him and really had to drag myself away when we left! A big thankyou to Jon for letting me have a go with his camera (the first of the three images below).