On Saturday (12/08) afternoon, I popped into Harrington Airfield for a walk in the hope of finding a few passerines or perhaps a Clouded Yellow. Unfortunately, I saw neither, with very few birds about. Butterfly-wise there were a few Brown Argus, Common Blues, Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshells & a Small Heath. Best thing I saw there was probably a Stoat scuttling about along the old runway.
I followed this up with a visit to Pitsford Reservoir, north of the causeway. This proved to be pretty decent. From the Scaldwell Bay's Bird Club Hide there was a sizable flock of 29 Black Tailed Godwits, a mixture of adults and juveniles and a nice find. Also present were 2 juvenile Garganey, 2 Great White Egret (1 Scaldwell Bay, 1 Walgrave Bay), 4 Green Sand, 1 Common Sand, 2 Yellow-Legged Gulls & 2 GBBGs.
Sunday (13/08) was a beautiful sunny one. Dan Watson and I spent the day touring quite a number of sites throughout Northants, in the vain hope we may actually find something. It was good fun and we came away with a few decent birds. We started off at Ravensthorpe Reservoir and located 3 Green & 2 Common Sand. Nearby Hollowell Reservoir produced for me, the highlight of the day with an Osprey cruising about for about 10 minutes before drifting off. Also here were a very approachable juvenile Dunlin and 3 juvenile LRPs.
A drive further along the A5199 brought us to Naseby Reservoir, a new site for me. It actually looked pretty decent. There were a few fishermen about, but also lots of muddy, fishermen-free shoreline too. There were 5 Green Sands present, as well as 2-3 Yellow Wagtail and a Garden Warbler in with a tit-flock. Nearby Welford Reservoir was pretty quiet, other than a couple of Common Sands.
We had planned to go to Stanford Res, however with time pressing, we decided instead to head to Pitsford Reservoir, north of the causeway. The Black Tailed Godwits in the Scaldwell Bay had decreased to just 6 birds, while there were also the 2 Great White Egrets, a juvenile Greenshank, 3 Green Sands and a Snipe.
A visit to Summer Leys afterwards was short-lived, with the site drastically overgrown and very little shoreline (and any birds of note) on offer. So to complete our day, we paid an early evening visit to Clifford Hill GPs. Both reported male & female Redstarts showed intermittently along the 'Chat hotspot' of the Hardingstone Dyke. Also along here was a very fresh, surprise juvenile Stonechat (below). The highlight here though, was undoubtedly Dan's reaction to finding the escaped female Bufflehead, losing his mind thinking he'd found a true mega!!
There were lots of gulls about. We had a good look through to see if we could pick out the earlier reported adult Caspian Gull. Best we could find though were 3 Yellow-Legged Gulls and that, was the end of that!
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