Northants birds

A largely dry week, during which temperatures nudged 30ºC under the influence of a light south-westerly airstream, saw the continued arrival southbound passage waders, the discovery of an immense tern and the surprise rediscovery of breeding Mediterranean Gulls.

A drake Red-crested Pochard visited Summer Leys LNR on 4th, with presumably the same bird relocating to Stanwick GP the following day, while the metal-ringed, escaped female Bufflehead was still present at Clifford Hill GP on 1st. Rare herons were limited to last week’s Bittern again at Summer Leys on 7th.

A female Honey Buzzard was an unexpected bonus for one observer as it drifted south-west over Sywell on 2nd, while there were reports of three Ospreys this week with two on 2nd, including one at Pitsford Res and one at Welford Res. Interestingly enough, the latter, a male, was ringed and proved to be a different individual to either of the two regularly visiting Stanford and Welford Reservoirs which were highlighted in last week’s feature.

The third was watched flying south-west over Thrapston GP on 3rd.The flow of southbound Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits continued with singles at Stanford Res on 1st, 2nd and 6th, three at Thrapston GP on 3rd, two at Pitsford Res on 4th with three there the following day and one on 7th, two at Stanwick GP plus six at Summer Leys on 5th and one again at Stanwick on 7th.

Local birders were caught completely off guard by the totally unexpected arrival of Northamptonshire’s fifth Caspian Tern, a smart adult, located at Summer Leys on 1st.  This dagger-billed colossus pitched down on ‘The Slips’ and was viewable from the Screen Hide for 80 minutes, before disappearing off down the Nene Valley, only to return again 90 minutes later – this time for 40 minutes – before heading off west. Clifford Hill GP was the next stop, where it was on view for nearly 3 hours in the early evening, after which it flew high west toward the sunset and was gone. It bore a red ring on its left leg, which enabled it to be confidently identified as the individual that had been frequenting the National Wetlands Centre, Carmarthenshire until 29th June. After leaving Northants, it was located briefly the following day at Chew Valley Lake, Somerset, before returning bizarrely to the Wetlands Centre in Carmarthenshire on 3rd. But this is what Caspian Terns do! Proof, if ever there was, that Caspian Terns are really quite mad …

Another happy event was the surprise rediscovery of the breeding Mediterranean Gulls at Stanwick GP on 3rd. After a ‘missing, presumed dead’ status had been pronounced last month, there they were – bold as brass – in the middle of the Black-headed Gull colony again this week, the adults feeding two well-grown young. The local Lesser Black-backs are off the hook … for now. Elsewhere, single adults were seen at Ditchford GP’s Irthlingborough Lakes & Meadows reserve on 2nd and hawking insects over Daventry on 5th, again on 6th and one on 7th, while four adults visited the scrape at Summer Leys briefly on 3rd. July is the month when Yellow-legged Gull numbers begin to build and after one at Stanwick on 3rd, four were present there on 5th plus seven on 7th, four were at Pitsford Res and one at Daventry CP on 5th and a different individual visited the latter site the following day.

The male Common Redstart was still at Clifford Hill GP on 1st, otherwise the week was light in terms of migrant passerines.

A mini heatwave, with temperatures hitting the low thirties during the penultimate week, sees spring merge with autumn as the first southbound Black-tailed Godwits and Greenshank arrive in the county and a small, brown duck causes a stir.

Continuing its reluctance to depart, the first-summer Eurasian White-fronted Goose moved from Stanford Res back to Pitsford, where it remained until 11th, while single drake Garganeys appeared again at Summer Leys LNR on 3rd and Stanwick GP on 15th. A drake Red-crested Pochard, now in eclipse, loitered at Ditchford GP’s Irthlingborough Lakes & Meadows LNR until at least 12th but the surprise discovery of a female with one young duckling at Thrapston GP, mid-month, turned out to be the first breeding of this species in Northamptonshire.

The origins of our Red-crested Pochards have never really been known for certain but the above discovery must surely be a case of feral breeding. The last day of the month produced seventeen Common Scoters at Daventry CP – the first decent-sized flock we’ve have locally for a long time and part of a large national overland movement taking place at this time.

Nice though they were, they did not attract anything like as much attention as a certain diminutive diving duck, which appeared at Clifford Hill GP on 24th – a potential first for Northamptonshire in the form of a female Bufflehead. Not the best time of year but there has been a series of June occurrences, coupled with a cluster of previous Midlands records, so hopes ran high as local, and some not so local, birders descended on this Nene Valley site on the edge of suburbia. It quickly transpired our girl was wearing a ring – albeit a metal one – and the rot began to set in. With more than 22,500 Buffleheads historically having been ‘banded’ in Canada and the USA, the presence of a ring was still not necessarily a problem but the ring detail was far from clear until, that is, she upped and went to Daventry CP on 27th. It was there and then that she was snapped in close-up, the ring detail scrutinised and any potential credential immediately dismissed as she was duly pronounced an escape. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

It has been a very poor spring for Quail, with just two singing males reported – both of which appeared to be one-day wonders. One was near the railway close to Kings Sutton on 9th and the other in a flax field near Burton Latimer on 18th. Summer Leys produced both of the period’s rare herons, which included a Great White Egret on the scrape on 14th and a Bittern in flight over the car park on 20th and again on the scrape the following day.

Wandering Ospreys featured at four localities during the month, including Welford Res on 3rd, 8th and 13th, three flew over Bulwick on the latter date and one visited Blatherwycke Lake on 16th but Stanford Res claimed the lion’s share. Stanford’s low water level continued to attract waders, including an Avocet for two days on 25th-26th, a late spring Grey Plover on 3rd and a presumably non-breeding first-summer Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit on 11th ahead of the first southbound Black-taileds – a nice flock of twenty-seven – on 25th.

One of these wore an Icelandic ring indicating it was a twelve-year old male and, thanks to Chris Hubbard’s research, its movement history is charted below. Clearly there was a Black-tailed Godwit movement taking place on 25th with further records of at least twenty-five at Summer Leys and one over St James, Northampton. More had arrived by the month’s end with 30th producing at least nine more at Stanford and singles at both Stanwick and Summer Leys. The autumn’s first Greenshank arrived at Stanford on 28th, lingering until the month’s end but further south, at Daventry CP, it was still spring when
five Sanderlings flew west on 6th.There was no avoiding Stanford’s pull for two Little Terns which arrived there on 28th but Pitsford – at which the water level is now looking enticingly low – attracted a Sandwich Tern to Scaldwell Bay on 19th. Both species are rarely recorded in the county in summer.

Following the breeding of Mediterranean Gulls at Stanwick earlier this year, another adult visited the Black-headed Gull colony there on 19th and two adults flew over Byfield the following day. June records of Yellow-legged Gulls are few and far between but the month saw two at Stanford on 17th, one at Daventry CP on 26th and one at Boddington Res on 30th – all of which were immatures. We also had our first June records of Caspian Gull, with Pitsford Res producing a second-summer on 10th, two second-summers the following day and one on 18th, while a first-summer appeared at Daventry CP on 27th.

Finally, the only passerine migrants found anywhere this month presumably belonged to autumn and they were all Common Redstarts. A female was at Clifford Hill GP on 25th-26th followed by a male there on 30th and a male visited a garden in Spratton on 26th.

The calm after the storm. After some sporadic heavy rain during the first forty-eight hours, warmer weather set in as winds swung between west and south-east and temperatures edged momentarily into the high twenties. As May turned into June, the northward flow of wetland migrants enjoyed by all in the preceding weeks almost dried up and we entered a quiet period, enlivened for some at least by the brief appearance of an Arctic Skua on 2nd.

At Stanford Res the first-summer Eurasian White-fronted Goose visited again on 30th but was not alone in being the only winter visitor lingering ludicrously late at this site. A drake Garganey continued a run of intermittent appearances at Summer Leys, showing there on 28th, 1st and 2nd, while two – presumably a pair – were at Stanwick GP on 29th. The only other wildfowl during the period were Red-crested Pochards, which included a drake and a hybrid female at Pitsford Res on 27th and two drakes bouncing back and forth between Ditchford GP’s Irthlingborough Lakes & Meadows LNR and Stanwick GP between 27th and 31st.

The latter site produced another late spring Bittern, which flew on to the A45 Lay-by Pit on 29th. On 2nd June, a Honey Buzzard was reported circling above Oundle before flying south-west, a Marsh Harrier flew east at Summer Leys on 27th, while an Osprey fishing at Stanford Res on 29th-30 and again on 2nd was perhaps not entirely unexpected, given the small number of breeding pairs in the region.

Above average numbers of Avocets have occurred this spring and more appeared this week, with two at Stanwick GP on the evening of 28th, although they were nowhere to be seen the following day. The trickle of waders continued with two more Grey Plovers – one at Pitsford Res on 29th and the other at Stanford Res between 31st and 2nd, while a Turnstone visited Pitsford Res on 27th, followed by two more there on 31st. Hollowell Res produced the week’s only Greenshank, on 28th, while last week’s potentially record-breakingly late Jack Snipe proved officially to be just that, remaining there until at least 1st.

Bird of the week, however, was the light morph adult Arctic Skua, which circled high above Daventry CP, late in the morning of 2nd, before drifting off north-west. Spring records are not unprecedented but even a stayer in autumn would be kinda nice …

After the full-on spring passage of Black Terns there was just one, at Pitsford Res, on 30th, when two Yellow-legged Gulls were at the same site. More unusual was the fly-over of two Hawfinches at Harrington AF on 29th – probably the first record for the site.