Putting The Brakes On

 A mostly sunny day today though with a cool north westerly wind which seemed to all but put a block on migration. Alan Shorrock and I were left wondering what to do in these challenging conditions, a possible pub crawl around Wellingborough had plenty of appeal but in the end we settled for some local mooching around.

Ringed Plover and Skylark

Our day began in Corby where we checked out a local site for plovers, Shozzer had already seen Little Ringed here this spring and we hoped to catch up with them again. A chorus line of Skylarks provided a very agreeable soundtrack to proceedings as we searched quite a large area for the birds. Persistence eventually paid off as we saw two plovers though these were Ringed rather than Little Ringed and were my first of the year. At the same site a pair of Lapwings were also in situ so potentially we could have three different species of plover breeding in the same area. From here we drove to Priors Hall where Sand Martins were feeding over the Quarry Lake, two Ravens appeared to be collecting nesting material and a pair of site scarce Great Crested Grebes were snoozing.

Greenfinch and Great Crested Grebes

Deene Lake was our next port of call and we checked the inflow out first before moving on to the main lake. A skittish Green Sandpiper was flying around the first while on the second there were three Shelduck and several Egyptian Geese. One sighting of interest was a territorial squabble between two pairs of fairly vocal Black Swans. Where else in Northamptonshire could you witness such Antipodean aggro? Our final birding stop of the day was at Blatherwycke Lake where the long staying female Scaup provided the only highlight, a pint in the Cross Keys ensured that the day ended on a good note.

Black Swans and Scaup