Today dawned bright and sunny after last night's winds making for a much nicer if slightly cooler day than yesterday. I wanted to give the Welland Valley a check to see if the floods had attracted any decent birds and so headed out towards Cottingham from where I wanted to walk as far as Gretton.
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| Pochard and Fieldfare |
My early morning walk through Corby was quite interesting, a Little Egret was seen near the town centre and a drake Pochard was on the boating lake. Both Marsh Tit and Nuthatch were noted as I walked past Hazel and Thoroughsale Woods. On reaching the countryside I began to note good numbers of winter thrushes as well as Skylarks and Meadow Pipits before reaching the valley below Cottingham.
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| Red Kite and Buzzard. |
Although there was still quite a lot of water left here there were few birds beyond some gulls and a heron or two. As I walked along the valley I began to think that I might well draw a blank as nothing of note was seen up to and beyond Rockingham. Luckily there was more flood water as I got nearer to Gretton and I stopped to check what looked to be a good sized group of birds. A first pair of swans proved to be Mutes but a second and more distant pair turned out on closer inspection to be Bewick's! It's been years since I last saw Bewick's Swans in the county and unfortunately this is a declining species both nationally and locally. Having notified Alan Shorrock I waited around for him to arrive while taking some record shots. Other species sharing the floods with the swans included good numbers of Lapwings and gulls, at least one Golden Plover and four Dunlins. Once Alan had arrived and I'd put him on the swans I left him to it and took a public footpath up towards Brookfield Plantation.
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| Bewick's Swans and Golden Plover (middle) |
A pair of Ravens passed over as I gasped my way up to the top of the ridge from where I had a breathtaking (literally!) view of the valley. Brookfield was very quiet but I did see a Peregrine at one of their usual spots before reaching home.
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| Raven and Peregrine |
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