Into The Valley

 With the rain and snow having featured quite a bit during the last week I decided to have another look along at least part of the Welland Valley. I'd hoped that there might be more flooding to investigate and I was not disappointed. My walk took me from Cottingham along towards Gretton before leaving the valley and heading up through Brookfield Plantation  and then home. 

Birdlife on the floods.

A fine sunrise marked the beginning of the day as I made my way through the deserted streets of Corby. It seemed pleasantly noisy with more and more Dunnocks adding their voices to those of the Robins and Song Thrushes. Passing the boating lake gave me a chance to check for the drake Pochard which sadly appears to have gone. Very little of interest followed until I found myself overlooking the floods near Cottingham. Not much here either in all honesty aside from a couple of Little Egrets and a small flock of about twenty five Lapwings. The floods below Rockingham held a pair of Shelducks though they were on the wrong side of the county border though a passing group of about fifteen more Lapwings were on the right side. Over flying the small sewage treatment works was a croaking Raven making its way to the woods near Rockingham village. There was a large area of flooding again in the place where I saw last month's Bewick's Swans and I stopped to give the area a good scoping. Although there was a double figure count of swans they all turned out to be Mutes. Looking through the huge number of Lapwings, at least five hundred in total, produced a couple of Dunlins but no other waders and I left the floods behind and began to walk up the hill.

Thrush selection and Starlings

There was a flock of Siskins in alders next to the flooded quarry near to Brookfield Plantation but the plantation itself was very quiet with just the two commoner species of woodpecker to report. On my previous visit I drew a blank on the Peregrine at its usual spot but made up for that dip today by seeing a pair. Last thing of interest on the list was a Grey Wagtail at the stream in the Old Village.

Peregrine pair.