Back on the Beat

I was back on my old beat of Greenfield this morning looking for migrants. With good numbers of Ring Ouzel popping up all over the show, I was hoping to strike lucky this morning too.

I didn’t. However, nine Wheatears, nine Swallows, four Chiffchaffs and a good count of five White Wagtails near the sewage works was a satisfactory return for a ninety minute walk and provided good evidence that this area is a decent spot for birds on the move. Keep watching this space – a Hoopoe is just around the corner!

Still feeling sprightly, I opted to a walk around another of my favourite spots: Garth Wood. As soon as I opened the car door a Comma butterfly floated past and at least four different Chiffchaffs could be heard singing nearby; in fact I think for the entire duration of the walk I was never out of earshot of at least one Chiffchaff and by the end I had racked up twelve males in full verse.

No Willow Warblers or Blackcaps (or Ioras DJ!) yet though and I can’t remember the last time I was in a woodland during spring and didn’t hear one single Great Tit singing its familiar ‘teacher-teacher’ refrain.

Garth did give up one of its more uncommon residents today mind you – I enjoyed a good twenty minutes sat in a sea of Wood Anemone watching a Dipper near where the footpath crosses the stream.

It was heartening to see a few other flowers finally in bloom too – Lesser Celandine and Primrose were in flower, plus a couple of others I snapped on my mobile phone that I still trying to reconcile with illustrations from my Collins’ book of British Wildlife!!

Until later.