Black Redstart and a Patch tick!

I had a shortish wander around Grimsbury Res early on the morning of Saturday 10/10. With nothing much going on, I decided to drive along the A361 to Daventry - hopefully to catch up with a Black Redstart around the compound at Borough Hill. It had been around a good 10 days, but this was the first real opportunity to get up there to see it. Luckily for me it clung on and after 15-20 minutes it appeared, to give lovely views in it's usual spot around the eastern side of the compound, where there were also several Stonechat too. Amazingly this was my first Black Red for about 2 years and so would've liked to have hung on a bit longer than I did, to enjoy it some more. However, I had things to do and so had to shoot off home.

While Saturday was a fairly bleak, cloudy day, with a chilly westerly breeze, Sunday 11/10 began with a light sprinkling of cloud, a hint of sun and a light NW breeze. The switch in wind held hopes of a bit of bird movement overhead and low and behold, that's how it proved.

A Little Egret was at the res on arrival, fairly scarce there but increasingly frequent. Four ducks then circled the res a couple of times and I soon realised that while the first three were standard Mallards, the back bird, while silhouetted against the sun, was clearly slightly bigger and much longer necked. It was a Pintail! They landed towards the S end of the res however as I marched down there, the Pintail was soon off, circling the res again a few times before heading off high S/SE. A really scarce bird for the patch - a shame it didn't hang about a bit longer.

After the excitement of the Pintail, it soon became apparent quite a few passerines were moving overhead. In fact it was a very good period of vis mig with almost everything coming through on a NE to S/SW line. The highlight was undoubtedly 9 vocal Crossbill that headed pretty much due S over the northern end of the res. A really good patch tick for me - I think my first patch tick of 2020. Other stuff on the move included a brief, buzzy pipit over S, which I'm pretty sure was a late Tree Pipit rather than something mad, 74 Redwing over in several flocks, a single Swallow, 2 Yellowhammer, 2+ Skylark, 3 Redpoll, 18 Siskin, 7 Reed Bunting, 18 + Mipits, Linnet & 7 Starling. Very Good vis mig for Grimbo, considering it's not a particularly high point in the landscape and all in just an hour and a half or so.