Blatherwycke Kicks Butt!

 This year I've adopted Blatherwycke Lake as one of my regular birding haunts and I'm trying to visit there at least once a fortnight. This morning despite having enjoyed a boozy catch up with an ex work mate last night I managed to crawl out of bed and blag a lift from my eldest step son. The skies were an all too familiar and depressing shade of grey and the wind had a distinctly cool edge to it but I was well wrapped up and didn't suffer too much on my wander around the area.

Kingfisher and Cattle Egret

I began at the gateway on the King's Cliffe side of the bund where a Kingfisher was a nice way to kick things off. Although I didn't manage to see any Mandarins a fly through drake Goosander made up for their absence. On the Blatherwycke side of the bund I found the Cattle Egret on the south shore hanging around with a quartet of Mute Swans, it was distant but I was able to get a few grainy record shots. The long staying immature female Scaup initially played hard to get but eventually I found her feeding with a small group of Tufted Ducks. I managed to get a few half decent pictures of her before I wandered off towards the village.

The long staying Scaup

It's getting closer to Valentine's Day and it looked to me as if the lake's population of Egyptian Geese were turning their thoughts towards matters of the heart. One very vocal gander was driving off several other males that were getting far too close for comfort to his mate, at least six birds were present. From the bridge in the village I paused long enough to watch a Black Swan driving a Mute Swan away from its stretch of the Willowbrook. Moving on to the churchyard and I looked to see if I could relocate the Goosander as they often feed on rivers and larger brooks. I totally failed in this endeavour and instead had to settle for a drake Red-breasted Merganser instead! My initial views were brief and for a long time I only had one rubbishy record shot as he often disappeared out of view. Eventually I saw him swimming down the brook towards the village and so decided to return to the bridge in the hope of getting better views.

Egyptian Goose and Black Swan

My instincts were proven to be right and I had exceptionally good views of the bird as it fed in the brook very close to the bridge. Naturally I took way too many photos of this stunning looking visitor and paused only long enough to update the Northants WhatsApp group on the sighting. I've never had better views of this species anywhere in the UK so it was great to get them in my home county. My lift was due to pick me up soon after and I left the bird to entertain any following birders that  may have arrived afterwards.

R-b M, initial record shot and other views.