Saturday 3 May 2014

Peacock Butterfly
There was a frost this morning under a clear blue sky and a light northerly breeze blew at times, negating the warmth of the sun until later in the morning.
GREYLAG GEESE on the paddocks at Migrant Alley
The Many Dandelion seed heads are a boon to the LINNETS and GOLDFINCHES
Another full patch walk was had and 5 hours were spent searching the fields and woods for any new spring arrivals for my year list, but none were found among the 47 species I recorded. I did add five more species to the May list though, taking that to 56, the best of those being a lone YELLOW WAGTAIL (52) that circled the Greenhouse Grounds, calling all the while. I managed also to find a COAL TIT (53) this morning, one sang from the Scrubby Woods, where a JAY (54) was the mornings third addition to the months list.

The KESTREL pair were both hunting around the Ashes Lane Field, at one point the male arrowed in and dived upon a JACKDAW, a quick fight ensued and the two parted with no harm done  :-) The blue sky encouraged the local pair of BUZZARDS (55) to soar on the thermals above the Wet Woods, the final species to join the May list was the LESSER WHITETHROAT (56), it gave two burst of song from the Greenhouse Grounds late in the morning.

A few Butterflies were on the wing, but nothing new for the year, SMALL WHITE, LARGE WHITE, GREEN VEINED WHITE,  SMALL TORTOISESHELL, ORANGE TIP and the PEACOCK at the top of the page were all seen.
This COMMON WHITETHROAT preferred to sing from the Greenhouse Roof
Its song was amplified by the surrounding glass buildings
This Jackdaw was at my Garden Feeders this afternoon
As was this territorial MAGPIE, which chased everything off every ten minutes!

5 comments:

Marc Heath said...

A jackdaw and Magpie, 2 species that often elude my camera. A first for me today as well, a great experience and luckily a few shots....... If they come out!

Warren Baker said...

Corvids are very wary marc!

Nick said...

It's May now Warren...!

Nick said...

It's May now Warren...!

Jason K said...

A nice haul there Warren. I managed to (finally) add Yellow Wag to my patch list for 2014 last week