Easter Weekend

The Easter weekend was quite late this year, however hopes that this would coincide with some migrant-rich weather was short lived, with continued W / NW winds. I did however persevere and managed to get out here & there locally, to see what I could find.

I gave Borough Hill another go, early on the morning of Saturday 15/04 on a bright, breezy day. It was pretty hard work finding birds, however in the end, I was pretty pleased to find a gorgeous male Redstart, together with another calling close by down on the southern slopes. Three Wheatears were also welcome, bombing around the SE corner of the hill.

The next day (Sunday 16/04), Em & I popped out for a walk during the afternoon, to see the local Bluebells. They didn't disappoint, despite the weather being a little on the gloomy side. On the walk up, a Tree Pipit headed over north, calling several times. A decent little find.

The number of spring flowers as a whole, was impressive and it was cool to find both roosting Orange Tip & Green-Veined White too.

The next day (Monday 17/04), I had a large chunk of the day to myself. I needed to get over to Northampton at some point and so I decided to start my day early at Pitsford Reservoir, with the possibility of bumping into an Osprey or something half decent. As it turned out, there was very little to find despite the gloomy conditions. The best were a very distant Green Sandpiper, a flyby Yellow-Legged Gull, 1-2 Common Tern & good numbers of all three Hirundines over the Scaldwell bay.

Later on in the day, after returning home to Brackley for lunch, I headed out again, this time into Oxfordshire. Grimsbury Reservoir in Banbury produced very little, with just a couple each of Common Sandpiper & LRP. I then decided to try Farmoor Reservoir near Oxford, always a decent migrant hot spot. I was also eyeing up the possibility of seeing the 1st-summer Bonaparte's Gull that had been around on and off for over a week.

As it turned out, I failed in locating the 'Bony's' and furthermore, my scope managed to topple over, damaging the eyepiece...bugger! Thankfully, it should be fairly fixable.

Best birds here included at least 4 lovely Yellow Wagtail close to the waterworks, several White Wagtail, 4 drake Red Crested Pochard, a late female Goosander, 4 Common Sandpipers & c10 Common Tern.