Summer Leys is a local nature reserve at Wollaston in the Upper Nene Valley, in Northamptonshire. It is owned by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.
Members of the nature group met today despite the forecast of heavy rain until lunchtime. The area along the A14 and A45 was very water-logged with many fields under water. Once we arrived the rain stopped. Later there were a couple of showers prior to sunshine and a bright afternoon.
It was difficult to get around the reserve without wellingtons as some of the paths were ankle deep in flood water and the water level was still gradually rising. A few of us had lunch at a picnic-table despite it being surrounded by water sodden grass but there was nowhere else to sit. At least it raised amusement.
It was very exciting to see a Stonechat pair, Little-Grebe and Egret and the feeding station certainly had a variety of birds.
A distinctive dove with a restricted range. The white wing patches are usually visible when perched, and become very conspicuous in flight. This species is listed as Near Threatened because it is suspected to have a moderately small population, which is threatened by habitat clearance and degradation within its very restricted range. The collared dove is one of the great colonisers of the bird world, having spread west from Asia, it first bred here in the 1950s and has even reached America.
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