A cloudy start to the day with a cool feeling wind, but the afternoon brightened up nicely.

The only bird species of any real note was heard in the early hours, - a TAWNY OWL (54), nice to get one on the August list  :-)  A LITTLE OWL was heard calling from the Small Holding this afternoon whilst I was in my garden, but my patch visit this morning was very quiet, nothing to mention of note, except maybe the passage of a few HOUSE MARTINS.

The only photo I took was of this Speckled Wood Butterfly.

Yesterday I had a trip to Sevenoaks family picnic wildlife reserve to photograph some dragonflies. I found a few nice Ruddy Darters.

Ruddy Darter

More sunshine on offer today, although it felt a bit chilly in the breeze first thing.

The fourth full patch walk of the month was undertaken today, which proved to be an average affair, with 43 bird species seen, none of which were additions to the month or year lists. The most notable sightings were the KESTREL family, 5 of which were up hunting together over the recently cut Ashes Lane Fields, plus a LESSER WHITETHROAT that was in some rough at the bottom of a garden along Ashes Lane. Few other Summer species were seen, just the local SWALLOWS, a few BLACKCAPS, 2 CHIFFCHAFFS, 3 COMMON WHITETHROATS and a flyover of 6 HOUSE MARTINS.

Just about all of the sometimes hard to find species were found in the Wet Woods / Scrubby Woods, those being GOLDCREST, TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, BULLFINCH, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, GREAt SPOTTED WOODPECKER, GREEN WOODPECKER, STOCK DOVE, JAY and SONGTHRUSH, only the Mistlethrush was missing today.

One of the five KESTRELS seen today

Female Southern Hawker, a male was also present

Migrant Hawkers were also seen