The Week in Focus, 2nd to 8th July 2016

Despite the continued westerly airstream, the weather remained largely dry with temperatures around average at best. Few new migrants were reported during the period.

The presumed escaped Pitsford Res Cackling Goose, showing characteristics of the race taverneri, was still among the Canadas there on 4th, as was the injured Ruddy Shelduck on 6th. The only other wildfowl of note were a Garganey at Stanwick GP on 8th and a Red-crested Pochard at Thrapston GP on 2nd and it was a quiet week for raptors with just a Marsh Harrier at Earls Barton GP on the same date.

Up to three Little Ringed Plovers were at Summer Leys LNR on 2nd-3rd, a Black-tailed Godwit was there on 4th, followed by four more at Stanwick GP on 7th and a Dunlin was at Earls Barton GP on 7th. Numbers of Common Sandpipers remained stable with four at Pitsford Res and one at Summer Leys on 3rd and two at Stanwick GP on 7th. Both of these sites held at least two Redshanks during the period.

Further down the Nene valley, two Yellow-legged Gulls were found at Thrapston GP on 2nd, while numbers of this species continued to build at Stanwick GP, where there were seventeen on 4th and twenty-seven on 6th, accompanied by a second-summer Caspian Gull on the latter date.

Male Firecrest, Northamptonshire, June 2016
Male Firecrest, Northamptonshire, June 2016

Quality, not quantity, was the order of the week for passerines as four male Firecrests continued to sing at the same site as in June, although song had considerably diminished during the last week, while two Crossbills were seen at Fineshade Wood on 2nd.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.