Stanford & Boddington Reservoirs

On a grey, miserable looking Monday (11/11), Dave James and I headed out to Stanford Reservoir to have a look for the long staying Osprey. Seeing it would have been the latest Northants record. It was my first visit to the site and it does look pretty good. There was no sign of the Osprey, however we did see some good birds including a Black Necked Grebe, a leucistic drake Red Crested Pochard, a quick flash by of a Merlin, a Peregrine (probably a young male), around 10 Goldeneye and a decent numbers of Fieldfares heading through including one bird missing it's tail!

We finished the day at Stanwick in the vein hope that the putative Azorean Yellow-Legged Gull would put in an appearance. It failed to show and in fact there were barely any gulls on the main lake! Best birds were a Redshank, a Dunlin, a drake Goldeneye, the odd calling Cetti's Warbler, good numbers of Fieldfares through and a rather impressive Jackdaw roost!

Tuesday (12/11) saw an early morning report of a redhead Red Breasted Merganser at Boddington Reservoir. So I threw some clothes and headed down there. A circuit of the site failed to locate the Merganser although I saw a few nice things, the highlight being a flock of 5 Red Crested Pochard (3 drake, 2 female) that flew in with 2 female Shoveler, also a relatively unusual sight there. Also seen were a single redhead Goosander, a female, Goldeneye, a calling Willow Tit and 2 vocal flyover Ravens.