Surprise, Surprise.

 Some of my birding friends have been suggesting of late that I should rename my blog as Wild Eyebrook given how much time that I've spending there recently.  Today I continued with that trend as Shozzer and I spent quite a lot of the day there. Sunny weather dominated the morning but gradually cloud cover grew as the day progressed and we even endured a few showers of much needed rain once the wildlife watching part of day was over.

Ruffs with Black-tailed Godwit

My day began in Corby Old Village where a fly over Crossbill provided an early highlight as I waited for Alan to arrive. I'd already had one OV moment this week on Thursday when I recorded a garden first Blackcap which paid the briefest of visits before moving into a neighbour's garden. Our Eyebrook day began at Stoke Dry carpark from where a Ruff showed very well, it was the first of at least eight that we saw today. From here we also saw the juvenile Black Tern that had been reported earlier feeding between the inflow and the island. It showed a few more times before we eventually left but never settled within view and I didn't get any photos. One other highlight from here was a Cattle Egret which presumably was the same as the previous individual which had returned after a spell of several days away.

Southern and Migrant Hawker

On our way to the bridge a Black-tailed Godwit was found feeding in the shallows with a couple of Ruff, it was to be joined by a further four before we left. Also showing from here were at least a couple of Pintail and a Wigeon. At the bridge we chanced upon some ode activity with both Southern and Migrant Hawker being added to an earlier sighting of Common Blue Damselfly. Scanning the vegetation from the bridge produced sightings of at least four Willow Emeralds, three were males and the other a female. Butterflies noted on the wing were Speckled Wood and Small White but there was little else to report. We had a brief stop at the inflow bunker from where we enjoyed half decent view of the Cattle Egret and more distant ones of the juvenile Peregrine.

Willow Emeralds

Once we had had our fill of the inflow we moved down towards the island where a Redshank was seen on the northern side. A short distance from there we stopped at the viewing bunker from where we saw two Common Sandpipers and an adult Yellow-legged Gull. There was a growing assemblage of large gulls gathering here and I'm reasonably sure that a juvenile Caspian Gull was amongst them though I can't be 100 percent on that, a fly by Osprey spooked them all at one point. Final stop on our way to the 'spoons was at Sam's Dyke where Al picked out the regular female Red Crested Pochard and I found a quintet of Common Sandpipers and a similar number of Little Ringed Plovers.

Cattle Egret and Common Sandpiper