I was thinking of going to
Stanford Reservoir as Malcolm had seen a Long-tailed Duck, six Little Ringed
Plover and a Green Sandpiper there this morning and it isn’t too far from home.
David then called to say he
was back from Norfolk and we decided we would go.
The reservoir straggles the
Leicestershire-Northamptonshire border and although it’s clear that certain
parts of the reservoir are in Northamptonshire the boundary is less clear on
the main area of water and therefore it is reasonable to record species on the
main water as in Leicestershire. When we
arrived, we parked at the inlet and found the water level was extremely low as
there is work being carried out on the dam.
We walked along the
Northamptonshire side of the reservoir and found twenty-one Little Egrets and a
couple of Redshank before we had gone too far and we then found five of the six
Little Ringed Plovers and seven female Goosanders just a little further
on. We then reached a large bay that is
clearly in Northamptonshire and we scanned the water towards the dam in what
was awful light. We could make out
several Goldeneye and I was sure I had the Long-tailed Duck but we couldn’t
relocate it.
After some deliberation, we
decided we needed to walk around the bay and get closer to the dam to be
certain, which was a good walk. Other
than about ten Tree Sparrows and a Bullfinch we hadn’t seen much else when could
view the main water in better light. We
found the Long-tailed Duck almost immediately and close to where I thought I
had seen it and probably did but at least we were now certain.
We made our way back around
the bay but then walked along an old railway line back to the road seeing a
Kestrel, circa thirty Fieldfare and five Redwing. When we finally got back to the car the app
on my phone indicated we had walked just under three and a half miles.
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