Bird news and more
A Slavonian Grebe in full summer plumage was found this afternoon on Mary’s Lake at Earls Barton Gravel Pits by Robin and Wendy Gossage. This species averages around two records per year in Northants – normally in the winter months – and individuals in summer plumage are extremely rare in the County. In fact this is the latest spring record ever and the first in May since 1974, when a pair visited Billing GP on 1st May. Thanks again to Bob Bullock for the excellent photo below.
While working in Rutland on Thursday, 12th May, Tom Lowe ‘videoscoped’ this Black Kite after it had drifted over him, high SSE, and crossed the River Welland into Northamptonshire between Collyweston and Easton-on-the-Hill. His videograb composite, below, leaves no doubts on the ID with perfect structure and the 6-fingered primaries
visible in the the top right and bottom left photos. This will be only the third record of Black Kite for Northants, the previous two were of singles near Long Buckby on 2nd May 1995 and at Summer Leys LNR on 7th May 2007, so May appears to be ‘the’ month. There have been a handful of previous reports but these have either been unaccepted or have related to escapes. Well done, Tom!
A phone call to Frank Smith from an excited farmer who was uncertain of the identity of a ‘large stork or ibis’ on his land at Weedon sent Frank over to investigate – and this was the
result! A fantastic adult Black Stork, only the second record for Northamptonshire, after the first at Barnwell on 27th-28th July 1990. The swift release of the news allowed local (and some not so local) birders catch up with a long awaited Northamptonshire tick! ‘Unblocked’, I think is the term.
The bird, present for 4 hours by the River Nene, just off the Upper Weedon-Dodford Road (see Latest Reports for directions), flew west at 16.45 but was later relocated about 1 km to the west, at the end of a rape field at around 18.45. It then took flight again towards some more ponds about 2 km further west.
Thanks to Bob Bullock for use of his photos and to the farmer for initially alerting Frank.
The busiest months are July/August, when the area is flooded with locally-bred juvenile birds; at this time 150-180 birds trapped per day is not unusual. Today was quiet with only around 35 birds trapped, many of which were retraps of birds previously ringed at the site. Willow Warblers and Common Whitethroats predominated but we also trapped this first-summer Lesser Whitethroat, aged by the absence of a white tip
to the penultimate outer tail feathers, further supported by the reduced amount of white in the outer tail feathers. A cracking little bird and a great example of putting birds under the spotlight to allow in-hand examination to reveal ID and ageing features not normally
visible in the field. With the increasing interest in ageing and sexing individual birds in the field, along with the tendency to ‘split’ races, feather-by-feather scrutiny of all birds is now at its highest level, with trapping and ringing playing an important role in the process of confirming and establishing ID criteria.
Publishing this rather nice photo by Bob Bullock of the singing male Wood Warbler, present for its third day today at South Wood near Corby, seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. Wood Warbler is a scarce spring passage migrant in Northants with between two and four records annually. There are a handful of autumn records and the species has occasionally bred.
Arriving at Summer Leys’ Screen Hide on Sunday, 8th May, morning, Bob Bullock and I were confronted by this Jackdaw, clearly one of a pair, both of which were gathering food.
It clearly exhibits a silvery collar on the side of the neck – a variable feature associated with ‘Nordic’ Jackdaw, the nominate race, monedula, which breeds in southern Scandinavia and is a scarce, though regular, UK winter visitor. In all other respects it is, however, just a ‘Western’ Jackdaw, lacking the greyer underparts and contrasting black throat of ‘Nordic’ Jackdaw. Compare it with a typical ‘Nordic’ Jackdaw, photographed also
by Bob, at Hayle, Cornwall in April 2008. Our British and western European Jackdaws (spermologus) have been known to interbreed with ‘Nordic’ Jackdaws in eastern Europe so is it a ‘Western’ Jackdaw with Nordic genes or just a ‘Western’ Jackdaw with notable feather wear?
Let’s face it, 1st May 2011 provided a great start to the new birding month – if you were at Summer Leys, that is. At 6.35 AM a Spoonbill flew west but was seen only by local photographer, Ben Harrold, who has very kindly agreed to my using one of his splendid flight shots here. Arriving at 6.40, as I did, I was clearly too late for the Spoonbill but from
Pioneer Hide I shortly located a stint feeding among the sparse vegetation on the recently exposed mud of the scrape. Against the bright, early morning sunlight it appeared dark-legged, grey and looked for all the world like a winter-plumaged Little Stint but its crouching gait and creeping feeding action had subconsciously sowed the seeds of doubt in the minds of some of the observers in the hide and should have set alarm bells ringing. Viewing conditions from the Paul Britten Hide were far better in terms of lighting, however, and it became immediately obvious that this was actually a Temminck’s Stint, sporting dull, olive-green legs and the rather drab, subdued upperparts characteristic of this species in summer. The stint soon transfered to ‘the slips’, where it was joined briefly by a Turnstone in almost full summer plumage, a Greenshank and, a few moments later, by 20 Siberian Bar-tailed Godwits, which came in low over the reserve from the south-west before dropping in for an hour or so, allowing the assembled birders to appreciate the variation in size, bill length and plumage. The slightly larger, longer-billed females, which rarely approach the males in terms of rufous-chestnut summer plumage, were readily apparent and one in particular almost towered above nearby males,
with the difference in bill length being clearly evident. All the Bar-tailed Godwits passing through Northants at this time are of the Siberian race taymyrensis, which winters in equatorial west Africa, leaving there in late April to undertake the approximately 7000 km flight to breeding grounds far to the north-east. Satellite telemetry has proven this species capable of undertaking long, non-stop flights which cover around 1000 km per day. The record is held by a female, which flew non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand – a distance of 11,400 km – in just 11 days. Amazing to think that just three days previously, these 20 birds would have been in Mauretania, Guinea-Bissau – or somewhere in between – before their appearance at Summer Leys!
Northants birds 