Some firsts

I heard my first Sedge Warbler of the year at Stanwick Lakes yesterday – and it wasn’t my only ‘first’.

The weather forecast was a bit rubbish but it wasn’t raining when I made some tea at 0630 and so the aim was to get to Stanwick Lakes before the rain started. I almost didn’t bother when I went out to the car and it felt like the rain had started,  but a tweet from Steve Fisher that there was an adult Kittiwake at Stanwick made me resolve to brave the deluge, which was just as well because a few minutes later in the Stanwick Lakes car park, there was light drizzle rather than rain.

But no Kittiwake! Oh well!  That’s birding for you. Or at least, that’s birding for me.

A look and listen for a Sedge Warbler in the place where one was heard yesterday by another birder proved fruitless. That was a shame – it seemed time for a Sedge Warbler.

There were lots of Chiffchaffs singing, and a few Willow Warblers too, but the Black-headed Gulls who were recolonising their island which had disappeared under the flood water for a few days, were the noisiest birds on the site.

It was feeling like another slightly frustrating morning in early spring when I spotted a new species for Stanwick Lakes for me – a species I see now and again from my house, and which I was bound to see or hear at Stanwick Lakes sooner or later. What was it? A Raven – a species making a real comeback but still a little unusual in east Northants, though getting quite normal in many places in the more pastoral western hills of my adopted home county. So that’s pretty good! It isn’t every day one adds a species to one’s patch list.

Back at the car park I checked my phone and Steve had tweeted that the Kittiwake was back, and also that it had gone, and also, most recently, that it was back again. Since his car is in the car park I decide to go look for either a Kittiwake or a Kittiwake-spotter or, most likely, both in the same place.  Isn’t social media wonderful? Well, it’s quite handy anyway.

Back at the hide overlooking the main lake there is Steve and we form a massive group of five Northants birders looking at the adult Kittiwake that is trying to hide behind several Black-headed Gulls and a Common Gull on the flooded grassland. I don’t think I would have spotted it on my own. Still, that’s two new species for my Stanwick list on the same day! Woohoo!

Having got that far, I did another circuit listening for Sedge Warblers and failed in the usual places but encountered one singing away almost back at the car park. Woohoo! again.

I thought this Sedge Warbler was a bit late, but my Birdtrack records show that actually it is slightly on the early side. I think I understand why I thought it was late – it’s because spring is always like this – it seems as though everyone is hearing spring migrants ages before I catch up with them because I see their records on social media.  But the first Sedge Warbler for ‘lots of birders in Northants’ is going to be ahead of the first Sedge Warbler for any individual birder in east Northants, eg me,  in most years.

2005	abroad
2006	7 April
2007	abroad
2008	13 April
2009	12 April
2010	10 April
2011	7 April
2012	11 April
2013	abroad
2014	9 April
2015	12 April
2016	11 April
2017	abroad
2018	8 April

And there were some Blackcaps actually singing today, so spring is moving on very slowly; my spring at my patch merely has the five easy first-arrivers; Chiffchaff, Sand Martin, Blackcap, Willow Warbler and Sedge Warbler. Not even a Swallow yet! But there is always tomorrow – except the weather forecast is promising rain. But hey! – it wasn’t so bad today. Singing Sedge Warbler and two firsts (for me) for my patch. What’s not to like about rainy days?

 

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