The first hint of Spring today with a singing Chiffchaff along the river at the back of the woodland. I assume this must be a bird that wintered locally - maybe at Sptial Farm Lake/the Sewage Treatment Works. There was also a Brimstone and Small Tortoiseshell on the wing.
Saturday, 27 February 2021
Sunday, 21 February 2021
21st Feb 2021: Winter blues
People talk about the summer doldrums, but my opinion is the winter is worse. We've started our year lists and tallied up as many species as we can mid winter and then we start looking forward to spring. And what a long and boring wait that is.... at least in the 'summer doldrum' period of the year there should be other flora and fauna to look at and, in theory, nice weather to enjoy! Anyway, since the last blog post the winter species seen were very much the same but there was a few things to keep us interested.
The most notable sighting being a Raven Adrian T saw fly over on the 1st Feb. A Little Grebe was around on the reservoir for a few weeks, which is very unusual for here. There was a really good number of Tufted Ducks around using both the reservoir and the Borrow Pit pool with several counts of over 50 birds and for much of the time a drake Pochard around too. The Great Crested Grebe count peaked at six birds. The regular Stonechats remained at the Borrow Pit and in the cattle field and Mike had five on one day, so there must have been an additional pair that moved in late winter - possibly on passage. Also there were several Siskins around for the most part.
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