Return migration gathers pace

Sunday July 21 saw me & Dave birding together for the first time in several weeks. The early signs were encouraging, with plenty of Warblers in the hedgerows including an obvious family party of three recently fledged Lesser Whitethroats. Swifts were still plentiful, although I see I only logged nine.

We discussed a persistently "hooeet" calling bird in the hedgerow as we approached the flash, and the bird in question eventually showed, confirming it was our first Redstart of the year.

The juvenile Redstart

The Little Owl also showed, while the flashes contained 12 Green Sandpipers, 4 Teal, about 12 Lapwings, 50 Starlings, and three Black-headed Gulls. The walk back was through long flower-rich vegetation which inevitably contained stacks of butterflies including Marbled Whites, and the three Skipper species you get here, Large, Small, and Essex.

My second year tick occurred as we reached the brow of the hill by Stapenhill Wood. We both heard the distinctive call of a Greenshank. It called only once and seemed to be south of us. Despite this we headed back to the flashes via the pool in the hope it had gone there, but there was no sign. The detour did pay off a bit though as we spotted three Sand Martins over the main pool, a patch year-tick for Dave.

A later check of the dragonfly pools showed that the water-level is dropping alarmingly, and there was no sign of the Greenshank there either. It must have gone straight through.