Today Dave and I again headed to the north of the county, the 'place to be' at the moment with great winter passerines on offer in particular.
We started briefly at Pitsford Resevoir to finally catch up with the Great White Egret and finally it showed very distantly at the back of Walgrave Bay first thing. Here there were also a couple of Brambling at the Feeding Station and a Redpoll sp. over.
Blatherwyke was the next stop having seen a report of a couple of Hawfinches by the church there yesterday plus the chance of Mandarin on the nearby lake.
There were several other birders there too on what was a clear but bitterly cold morning. We had a flyby Raven before after a bit of searching I found a Hawfinch sitting in a tree top close to the church, get in!! Eventually there were 5 in total sitting up showing really well. We got closer by going in the churchyard having smashing views of a pair in particular.
The lake, after a long old search eventually yielded a smart pair of Mandarin Duck cruising along the far shore. There was also news that a small flock of Waxwing were around the corner by the A43 near Laxton and after we finished up at Blatherwyke, we headed to see them. Sure enough the Waxwing showed amazing well with around 30 birds showing down to several feet!
Hollowell Resevoir was next up and the luck continued with Dave finding a male Stonechat almost straight away on fences by the outflow. We then found an beasty adult Caspain Gull which flew in and landed on the water. Other birds included at least 9 Goosander and several Snipe.
Harrington Airfield held little, with no sign of the recent hunting male Hen Harrier, however around the beginning to the concrete track were several Brambling and a couple of Lesser Redpoll around too
The day was completed at Blueberry Farm, near Maidwell. Here we were lucky to come across a Woodcock in flight, however there was no sign of any Barn Owl in the area. Nearby Dave and I had great views of a couple of showy Tawny Owl, my first proper look at them out in the open in some kind of daylight.
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