Thursday 27 May 2010

It rained for most of the morning -the first proper rain for weeks, and this afternoon a low dull cloud continued to keep things dull and damp.

Around 16:00 the cloud started to break, and some sunshine broke through, my cue to get out around the Tree Nursery and Paddocks at Migrant Alley.

There were no butterflies or moths to be found along the hedgerow in the Tree Nursery, but DUNNOCK, WHITETHROAT and CHAFFINCH were all back and forth with food for thier nestlings. A quick walk around the Nursery perimeter produced a few common species, GREENFINCH, MAGPIE, GOLDCREST, ROBIN, WREN and a GREEN WOODPECKER.

A circuit around the Sheep Pasture and Paddocks at Migrant Alley was a pleasant enough walk, ROOKS, JACKDAWS, CARRION CROWS, WOODPIGEONS and LINNETS were all to be found, as well as two STOCK DOVES. I reached my skywatching seat at 17:10, and sat for an hour to see if anything interesting might go over, Black Headed Gull or a Lapwing would be good. A Gull came over straight away, but it was a HERRING GULL, a little later 3 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS went over, but that was it for the Gull species.

As I sat and listened, I could here a CUCKOO calling from the Lakeside Scrub area, a SONGTHRUSH singing from the Greenhouse Complex, a BLACKBIRD singing from one of the nearby gardens, and two SKYLARK over the cut silage field. As well as the earlier Gulls, flyovers included GOLDFINCH, TURTLE DOVE, KESTREL, PIED WAGTAIL, COLLARED DOVE, and the low flying SWALLOWS, above them were a couple of HOUSE MARTINS and even higher were at least two dozen SWIFTS. GREAT and BLUE TITS were in the Tall Hedge behind my seat, where another pair of Whitethroat were also present.

In all, a very relaxing late afternoon - but still nothing added to the months list, or the year list, just 4 days left to get those two species :-)

I took these two photo's in my garden - something to brighten the page up!

Above: Goldfinch's, Below: Jackdaw



4 comments:

Greenie said...

Warren ,
We needed the rain , but it wasn't nice to be out in .

Phil said...

I haven't had a chance to get out since coming back from holiday Warren but i've really noticed a lack of birds in the garden for the last couple of days. I guess this is being reflected all around at the moment.

Kerry said...

I hate to say it but we could do with a bit of rain here. I saw in our local paper today that it has been the driest spring for 54 years and the rivers are well below normal. They think we might be in for a drought, but I think on the balance of probabilities it will rain all summer again. :-(

I hope you manage to find the species you need in the last few days of the month.

ShySongbird said...

No rain here Thursday but lots Wednesday night. Still no Cuckoo here :(

I did have a Jackdaw in the garden briefly, the first for years!