26th Apr 2016: Hobbies and Garganey

It was a good news day with two new birds for the year and a decent back up cast too. It does strike me how often we have days of little or no news and all of a sudden we'll have a day with lots of birds. Strange, but that's the way it is sometimes.

John and I were out early and had four Common Sandpipers, three each of White and Yellow Wagtails around the reservoir and there was a good number of hirundines building up. Walking out around the wood I found a Little Egret on the river. The sad news is the Song Thrush nest has probably been predated, with no chicks left and no adult birds in attendance. Maybe it was the Weasel seen over the weekend.

Adrian Bletchly was out late morning and had our first Hobbies of the year, with two flying over north. The work party was out checking the bat and bird boxes amongst other tasks and had Stock Doves nesting in the owl box and a Daubenton's Bat. This is the first record of bats using the boxes since they were put up and hopefully the first of many.

John was out this evening, I'm sure in search of Arctic Terns but in my opinion what he found was even better. A drake Garganey at the Borrow Pit pool. There are old records for Garganey at the reservoir but I don't have dates for them. Either way this is the only recent record I know of and is a very good find, continuing our very good spring.

Courtesy and copyright of Kyle Smith

Courtesy of JFT