Sunday 3rd January
2016
Spent the day in BEDFORDSHIRE, where heavy
rain curtailed most of the birding bar the last hour of
daylight....
Below is a list of the highlights, spent in
part with Stuart Warren & MJP...
GREAT GREY SHRIKE briefly in rain perched
high on the fragmented hedgerow on the opposite side of the railway line at TL
193 390 and viewable from the concrete track that leads to the sewage works - TL
192 390 (Poppy Hill Farm, NNE of Henlow)
Stuart & I put up 2 JACK SNIPES at G
& M Growers Pits (Broom), with 2 Teal there and a Meadow Pipit but no sign
of any Bearded Tits or Common Snipe. The early COMMON SHELDUCK was nearby at
Gypsy Lane East (Broom) but there was no sign of neither Peregrine nor Merlin in
the driving rain
Ten of the 13 LITTLE EGRETS were on show in
the damp field adjacent to Stockbridge Close in Clifton (situated at TL 173 390,
while at Upper Caldecote, I could only find 5 Yellowhammers, with no sign of
either Tree Sparrows or Grey Partridges.
At the Hatch Turn, most notable were a mixed
flock of 105 Common Starling, 39 Fieldfare and 8 Redwing, with not a single Corn
Bunting or finch flock in the Moggerhanger area.
I spent a while in heavy rain looking at the
entrance gate feeders at The Lodge, Sandy, but drew a complete blank on
Bramblings.
At TL 094 487, opposite Octagon Farm, a
massive flock of Lapwing and European Golden Plover, click-numbering 538 and
2,007 respectively!
On Rookery Pit North, both GREAT NORTHERN
DIVERS were still present but none of the Scaup (a lot of Aythya's
though) and likewise a wildfowl busy Quest Pit failed to relinquish the 5
Red-crested Pochard MJP had seen there on New Years Day.
Dropped in to Stewartby Lake to join MJP and
his self-found adult winter MEDITERRANEAN GULL, with 38 Great Crested Grebe
there, 35 Common Gulls, 8 Herring Gulls and a single adult Great Black-backed
Gull; a single PEREGRINE was roosting on one of the chimneys (MJP had seen
4)
Brogborough Lake added 3 GREATER SCAUP in
with a relatively small group of Aythya's by the Cormorant islands - an
adult drake, a first-winter drake and an adult female (although NW tells me the
adult has a hint of a tuft indicating some outside influence) as well as 384
Coot, 43 Common Goldeneye, 8 Great Black-backed Gulls and 6 Argenteus
Herring Gulls.
I then rushed over to Upper Drakelow Pond in
Woburn Park, where MJP's 3 GOOSANDER were still showing and waking (2 drakes and
a female) before just arriving at a Woodcock roost for Martin to ring me with 2
Little Gulls!! I hastily raced back but alas to no avail - the light had gone -
all 3 observers having lost them (MJP, Pete Smith & Bob Hook)
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