It all started with my first Willow Warbler of the year, singing away at Grimsbury Reservoir on Friday 01/04. The next day, having stayed at a mate's house in Little Irchester on the Friday night, I had to get home fairly early on, however not before I'd had a quick peek at nearby Summer Leys. Despite encouraging cloudy weather, there was very little in terms of new birds in. Still, nice to see the now long-staying female Scaup again, a couple more singing Willow Warblers and distant views of one of the drake Garganey over on the RMC pit. A tiny trickle of Sand Martins & Swallows also went through.
Later in the day, I popped over to Banbury and inevitably had a quick look at Grimsbury. The place was utterly dead, then all of a sudden, my first Yellow Wagtail called loudly, flying low over my head and into the cattle field. Great stuff!
The next day (Sunday 03/04), I teamed up with Gareth very early, to scour Borough Hill in Daventry for Wheatears, Rouzels etc.
While waiting for him to arrive, I had lovely views of an immature Peregrine heading low south over the BBC compound area of the hill, while closeby, I found my first Wheatear of the year too, a super smart male bombing about the bits of concrete and rough grassland.
Soon after, I teamed up with Gareth. Together, we had a really good search around the various slopes and hedges but failed to find nothing more notable than a second Wheatear, this time a female. The numbers of Skylark here were as usual, a real highlight, creating a nice wall of burbbling sound the entire time. Certainly no sign of decline here!
We next popped down for a look at nearby Daventry Reservoir / Country Park. After polishing off a very nice if rather pricey bacon roll, a scan revealed absolutely nothing, not even a single hirundine! A pair of Goldeneye was literally it! We were 'treated' to views of a big green parakeet species squawking away, behind the dam. Too big for a Ring-Necked and vocally different too. Gareth suggested probably an Alexandrine Parakeet.
We had another go for Rouzels on the slopes just south of Daventry, between the town and Newnham. Last year several lingered for well over a week here but no luck on this occasion. We did see a Fox on the look out for a tasty Rabbit meal and also heard my first Blackcap of the year here.
Monday (04/04) produced a cracking bird for the Banbury area in the shape of a summer plumaged Black Necked Grebe, discovered by Colin Wilkinson on the small Borrow Pit, a short distance from Grimsbury Res. The first one in the area since 2002! It stayed for the day and I managed to catch up with it in the evening in the pouring rain!
The day as a a whole was quite a productive one, with the first Common Sand of the year on the res, as well as a couple of LRP, singing Blackcap and an apparent increase in Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff. A nice Green Sand was also on the Borrow pit for a short while.
Tuesday 05/04 was a little quieter on the migrant front at Grimsbury; that was until the evening when I found an utterly beautiful male Redstart in the hedge between the cattle field and the water treatment works. A real treat watching it feeding, amongst the blossom in the evening spring sunshine. Has to be one of my all time favourite birds!
Other things of note included a vocal Willow Tit in the wood, a Peregrine over, a couple of Siskin still hanging about and a trickle of Swallows, Sand Martins & House Martins.
The rest of this week I've seen a small trickle of further migrants, with W/NW winds holding back the full tide of further new birds coming in from the south. There have though been plenty more hirundines, a few Blackcaps, another Yellow Wag and up to 3 White Wags too. The weather looks great (in birding terms) for the weekend and early next week, so fingers crossed the good birds continue!
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