Even though it was just an average May day weatherwise, cool with sunny intervals, it felt a whole lot better than the rubbish of late!
It enabled me to have a nice couple of hours out on patch, I walked the Tree Nursery, mainly looking for Odenata, and Butterflies but none were found, except a single Small White Butterfly. Two pairs of COMMON WHIETHROAT were seen, and a LESSER WHITETHROAT could be heard singing across Ashes Lane, over at the Greenhouse Grounds.Up above, one of the KESTREL pair was up hunting, and both SPARROWHAWK and BUZZARD were seen going over. SWIFTS filled the air at different times during my visit, all passing through NW, at times the sky seemed full of them, with those were smaller numbers of HOUSE MARTINS.
I made my way over to the Lakes and Scrubby Woods, where butterflies were again hard to come by, just 2 Comma, 2 Green Veined Whites and a male Orange Tip were found, there weren't any Damsels or dragonflies about though. On the water there was a male MANDARIN DUCK and a GREY HERON, plus the COOTS with their two young, the only other things on the water were MOORHENS.
A few singing BLACKCAPS and CHIFFCHAFFS were heard in the Scrubby Woods, and more surprisingly a SPOTTED FLYCATCHER was seen, they don't normally turn up here. BULLFINCH, JAY, TREECREEPER, GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER were all seen carrying food, or visiting their respective nests, a LONG TAILED TIT nest was being visited by 3 adults, all bringing food in :-)
The only other thing to note today was seeing the first fully fledged ROOKS at Migrant Alley as I walked into work this morning, the 11th species to have been confirmed as breeding successfully on my patch so far this year.
Nothing new was added to my May list, or Year list, but it was good to be out anyway :-)
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| One of the 3 adult Long Tailed Tits bringing food to the nest. I wish I had put by 500mm lens on now! |
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| Long Tailed Tit |
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| Long Tailed Tit |
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| One of two Comma Butterflies seen today, I wouldn't have got such a good photo with the 500mm lens, so it's swings and roundabouts! |
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| Comma |
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| At the bottom end of the Tree Nursery is a run off pool, here there was a breeding Moorhen, she kept well hidden under the vegetation, calling to the youngsters all the time to stay low :-) |
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Sparrowhawk from yesterday evening.
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8 comments:
I like those LTT photos just as they are! How nice that there is some community feeding going on :-)
It's supposed to be dull for the rest of the week :-(
Sprawk:) I love it. Everytime you write it, I laugh. It's PB lingo:) I am glad there is less rubbish outside....that's a fun word to say...ruuuubish! Here in the states we are much more crass....we like to say, $RIT!. ie..."$4i++y Weather:)" I'll give you some of our intense hot heat for some of that cold rainy weather. Tucsonans would love it....especially the birders in Tucson and Phoenix:) It has been too hot to enjoy the outside. We have to get up super early now to get it all done.
Rohrerbot,
You got a deal :-) 3 days of your heat should see me ok ( after that I get too hot and want the cold back!!)
Songbird,
It's not unusual for failed Long Tailed Tit breeders to help out with feeding other Long Tail fledglings :-)........does that make sense :-)
Great to see a few buttrflies Warren, my list this year stands at 4 species!!!
Warren ,
Great shot of the hiding Moorhen .
It was still very cool by the water at BB .
Thanks for your ID confirmation .
Nice long tailed tit pic you have there !! Great birds aren't they, flying teaspoons !!
That is a great Sparrowhawk portrait mate.
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