With the country sitting under high pressure all week and the calm after the storm finally with us, there was a lull in birding activity as things went seasonally quiet.
Therefore, some excusable barrel-scraping seems justified in terms of flagging up the continued presence of the Chiloe Wigeon x Crested Duck hybrid, at Summer Leys LNR, on 5th.
Apart from that, the wider horizons of the Brampton Valley were the backdrop for a singing male Quail from 7th until 10th and another was singing near Geddington on 5th.
Two Cattle Egrets maintained the species’ weekly appearance at Stanwick GP on 7th and single Great Egrets – or perhaps the same bird – were seen in flight over Stanford Res on 6th and 11th.
On the raptor front, an Osprey, ‘blue T3’, a male from the Rutland project, hatched in 2016, visited Pitsford Res on 7th and Hollowell Res on 9th.
Adult male Osprey ‘T3’, Hollowell Res, 9th June 2021 (Martin Swannell)
Adult male Osprey ‘T3’, Pitsford Res, 7th June 2021 (Helen Redpath)
Waders were, unsurprisingly, in short supply but away from breeding sites, 2 Curlews dropped in at Summer Leys on 5th, while three late spring Knots paid a brief visit to Stanwick on 10th.
Summer Leys also produced two adult Mediterranean Gulls again on 5th and a first-summer of the same species visited Clifford Hill GP on 6th, while a third-summer Yellow-legged Gull was at Stanwick on 10th.
Channel Wagtail, Stanford Res, 8th June 2021 (Glynn Preston)
Scarce passerines were thin on the ground and represented this week only by a smart male Channel Wagtail, which appeared around the dam at Stanford during the evening of 8th.
Northants birds 