Wednesday May 14

After a fine sunny day, my evening's birding was not without incident. To begin with Jon was contacting me pretty regularly to let me know how well he was doing at Haselor scrape, where he tells me he is going every night. Tonight's offerings were two Oystercatchers and a close Yellow Wagtail.

Morton Bagot, by contrast, has been going through a "quiet period" for about a month!  But maybe there were some encouraging signs tonight. To begin with there was a wader on the flash. OK it was just a Little Ringed Plover, but its been a couple of weeks.

With news of the stuff at Haselor, I felt determined to get something. And suddenly something turned up. Another wader, this time a Redshank. I'm almost embarrassed to admit this was only the second this year.

Not too bad. I strolled back past a singing Sedge Warbler and several pairs of Tufted Ducks. A male of the latter was caught in the act of doing its head nodding display.

Onwards and upwards. Near Bannams Wood I paused to take in a quite impressive sunset.

Just then a slightly familiar call, "krriak" stopped me in my tracks. It was coming from the other side of the hedge. It called again. A Grey Partridge. This species has the extraordinary ability to remain invisible for most of the year, but must surely be resident. I got through the hedge, and hung around. The habitat it was in consisted of long grass blanketing a field with Felix's saplings in it. There was no chance of a view of the bird, and it also stopped calling.

Perhaps, at least in the short term, the lack of agricultural chemicals on Felix's land will prove beneficial for this species.