The first murmur of Spring

On Saturday (07/03), I had the day free to myself, so I spent my time visiting several sites around Northants.

In rather cloudy, cold and windy conditions, I started first thing at Lings Wood looking for Lesser Peckers. No luck and not overly surprising given the weather!

Next, I drove down the A45 to Summer Leys where, after a bit of gloom, the sun soon burnt through. On arrival, a big female Peregrine was pointed out to me, chilling on the grass close to wader bay! Surprisingly, everything carried on with their daily business around her, that was until she headed off when pandemonium broke loose! A largely obscured Great White Egret was in the vegetation to the left of wader bay. A drake Pintail was feeding with Shovelers close-by, while good numbers of Wigeon included a striking leucistic bird. A pair of Oystercatcher were also present, asleep on Brayshaw's bund.

Birding the other side of the reserve from the lane, close to Chestnut corner, a total of 3 Little Egret were visible. 3 Chiffchaff were actively feeding in the hedgerow by the path. Two of the birds were soon singing away in the sun competing with each other. No sooner as this happened, a couple of Brimstone butterflies decided to appear, floating past me and out of sight. For me, there and then Spring 2015 had begun!

A pair of Mute Swans were bossing it along the lane close to the feeding station, standing their ground and hissing at any passers by which made for a pretty funny sight! Walking along the lane, a second Great White Egret flew over the lane from Pete Wilde's lake & onto the reserve.  A Peregrine soon appeared above me, soon joined by another. They performed an aerial and very vocal tussle pretty high up, before slowly heading off south.

I had a look at Pitsford Reservoir from the feeding station with photos of Tree Sparrows the main aim. Closeby, between here and the causeway, the trio of White Fronted Geese were showing really nicely preening away together with the local Greylags.

As usual there were good numbers of Tree Sparrows and despite me running out of camera battery without a spare on me, I managed to get a few decent shots. There were also several Brown Rats foraging the seed with the birds seemingly unfazed by their presence!

I finished the day with a walk around Borough Hill, Daventry plus a visit to the gull roost at Boddington Reservoir. Sadly both yielded very little of note.