Mid-summer and the early beginnings of autumn were a further continuation of the warm dry weather from the spring.
All local water bodies reached probably the lowest levels I'd seen, in my 13 years living in south Northants. As such, there was lots of suitable wader habitat and I was licking my lips, as to what this year's autumn wader passage had to offer!
Ardley Quarry was where I focused most of my efforts, with the ERF lagoon looking good, if rather low! However, it was Bicester Wetland that delivered the first half decent wader of the autumn, with a couple of stunning islandica Black-Tailed Godwit, on the evening of 29/06.
As other places started to pull in passage waders, I found it hard going, other than a pair of Oystercatchers and the usual strong passage of Green Sandpipers and sprinkling of Common Sandpipers. However, one facinating turn of events was the numbers of Little Ringed Plovers, culminating in a startling count of 26, spilt between the lagoon and the quarry lake on the evening of 05/07. Consisting of 17 adults and 9 juveniles, some undoubetbly had been the result of breeding on site, presumably suplimented by other birds on the move.
Gulls are the other point of interest in late summer, as non-breeders gather and fresh juveniles begin to appear. Yellow-Legged Gulls were as usual, fairly easily to enounter, while a distinctive 2cy Caspian Gull lingered around the lagoon during the early days of July.
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