Out In The Cold

 If the weather guessers are to be believed today was the last day of the current cold snap, I'm guessing it can't come soon enough for much of our wildlife. Alan Shorrock and I braved sunny but frigid conditions in order to explore the Thrapston Gravel Pits complex. With much of the water frozen and the frost whitened ground hard underfoot it must be difficult for many species to feed and I wonder how many birds we may have lost during the past week.

Kingfisher and Black-tailed Godwit

After arriving at the Aldwincle nature reserve we made our way along the river towards the site of the new North Hide. A Cetti's Warbler sang briefly and we heard Kingfisher several times as we walked. On the only ice free patch of the lake there was a selection of duck but nothing too interesting. Water Rail was squealing from near the hide and a Chiffchaff was calling, we managed to catch a glimpse of one of those Kingfishers too but only briefly before it flew off. Our local wildlife trust seem to have been quite industrious of late and from a second new hide we saw Great White Egret and also a Black-tailed Godwit having a snooze on the ice. The walk towards the town lake yielded several Snipe view but little else apart from a Stonechat.

Robin and Shovellers

Much of the town lake was frozen over though there was quite a stretch of open water mid way out. Perhaps as many as forty Pochard were feeding or kipping here and a similar number of Shovellers too. At this point with the evening drawing in we decided to turn around and head back towards the car park seeing another Stonechat and a few more Snipe as we went.