County Travels

My brother and I did a bit of a county tour today as we checked out some of the better birding sites in Northants. We began just before sunrise at Kingswood in Corby where we found a selection of the commoner species including Stock Dove. After about an hour it was time to move on and we made our way over to Stanwick Lakes.

Kingswood views.

Stanwick was a bit on the misty side when we first arrived though it did not take long for conditions to improve. Our main goal was try and catch up with our first Northants Cattle Egret, we've made a few attempts in the past but with no joy whatsoever. Today luck was on our side however as we found the reported bird preening in a tree close to some cattle. Although the bird was quite distant we were happy just to have finally caught up with this species. Herons were well represented today with Great White and Little Egret as well as Grey Heron joining their scarcer cousin on the day's list. There were plenty of Reed Warblers singing around the site but no hirundines at all. Worryingly we didn't see any at Summer Leys either, hopefully it was just bad luck on our part and not a sign of a major decline. A single Muntjac was the only other wildlife noted here this morning.

Stanwick.

Moving on along the Nene Valley took us to Summer Leys where we hoped to catch up with the long staying drake Garganey. While the bird was indeed reported today we were unable to find it, I suppose you can't expect to win them all! More warblers were heard around the reserve with at least four Lesser Whitethroats and a few Sedges as well as those species that were already well established. Not many waders were on view with a few Redshanks and a couple of Little Ringed Plovers being the only ones apart from Lapwing. With the sun burning rather hot by now it was no surprise to see some butterflies, Orange-tips were the commonest but at least ten Brimstones were noted too and these included several egg laying females. Several Speckled Woods were also found but I couldn't find any damselflies today despite having a look.

Egret trio.

Reports of two Avocets at Irthlingborough were enough to persuade us to give it a try. We were fortunate enough to catch up with them and had some distant and heat hazy views of this scarce county visitor. From here we moved on to our final stop at Harrington airfield where we saw a selection of common farmland birds including several Whitethroats. A few more butterflies were also added to the list with three Small Tortoiseshells and a Peacock being noted. Satisfied with our day's wildlife spotting we headed back towards home where I treated myself to a cold beer - cheers!

Some of today's wildlife