Quick look about

Didn't get to do too much birding over the weekend but did get out for most of Saturday (20/02) morning. Having stayed at my parents near Northampton Friday night, I stayed local to there.

I fancied a go for Jack Snipe as hadn't as yet caught up with any so far this year. Pretty much the best site locally is Barnes Meadow Nature Reserve and is just less than 10 minutes from my parents. Before heading there, I took a look at the adjacent Delapre Lake / Hardingstone GP. A drake Scaup was here earlier on in the week and it's always worth a look. Nothing out of the ordinary today though, with the usual 15-20 Gadwall, a couple of Wigeon and plenty of Tufties

Barnes Meadow was though more productive, with nice views of at least 2 Jack Snipe and around 5 Common Snipe.

I finished my birding with a visit to Summer Leys to take a look for the female Scaup that had been around for the last few days. I've been birding Summer Leys / Earls Barton GPs since I was just 8 years old, it was one of the first places my dad took me to watch birds. As a result, I do have a bit of a soft spot for the place and do hold a bit of a site list too. Scaup was a new bird for me there so was pretty keen to catch up with it.

With time pressing I headed straight for the screen hide / Feeding station area to track it down. There was a nice range of all the usual common duck species but despite plenty of Aythyas about, I could find what I was looking for. Eventually, I picked her up in the scope distantly coming out of the bay near to the feeding station, female Scaup, nice one!

  



















I headed round to get a better look and indeed got some pretty decent views as it continually dived for food. I then had to drag myself away as I had other plans back home. Ideally, I would've stayed to have a better look around, but nevermind!