Dry, Dry Dry

 The weather guessers suggested that today was going to be a wet one according to the advanced forecasts that I'd seen. I'd even got my waterproofs ready in preparation for this morning's stroll but was delighted to find that I didn't need them. Instead of rain there was blue sky and sunshine and it turned out to be a lovely late Autumn day for taking a walk.

Lapwings and Stonechat

My stepson dropped me off at Deene just after nine and almost immediately I heard a Kingfisher call as if flew along the Willowbrook. Nearby I had brief views of a Stonechat though that wasn't much of a surprise as I'd read that they were here on the Northamptonshire Birding blog. The churchyard was rather birdy with a decent selection of the commoner species on view. A Nuthatch was calling and I could hear the thin calls of Redwings while several Song Thrushes serenaded me. Yew trees attracted at least two Mistle Thrushes and several Siskins called as they passed overhead. Deene Lake was mainly bird free for some reason and high water levels meant that water was seeping over the dam. There was a Grey Wagtail briefly on the water's edge while a pair of Stonechats were using a barbed wire fence from which they sallied out on to the nearby ground in search of food.

Egyptian Geese and Red Kite

Deenethorpe village hosted another Mistle Thrush while in a field on the outskirts I saw two Egyptian Geese. The airfield was fairly busy too with the usual Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and Linnets flitting about. A party of Long-tailed Tits were foraging and I also saw my only Fieldfare of the day. Now I don't know how others feel but I sometimes suffer from Kite fatigue in that I get tired of checking out raptors only to find that they're yet another Red Kite and consequently don't always bother. Today I saw a large raptor and almost ignored it but it seemed darker than normal and a check through the bins revealed it to be a Marsh Harrier, my first at this site. Knowing that Neil McMahon had seen one at relatively nearby Blatherwycke in the week I checked with him to see whether it could have been the same bird. Turns out that his was a young bird whereas mine looked like an adult female, disappointingly I didn't manage to get any pics. Last birds of note before I began my walk towards Weldon were Marsh Tit and Nuthatch on the edge of Weldon Park Wood.