Tuesday April 14

A warm sunny morning with a light south-westerly breeze.

I decided to start by surveying the south end. In recent years I have got a bit lazy when it comes to assessing the numbers of breeding birds on the patch, so this exercise is good for the soul and good for science. After an hour the best finds down there were a singing Goldcrest and the first of three singing Willow Warblers.

With time slipping away, I opted to march straight to the pool because my second plan for the day was to sketch Mallards. On the way I spotted a female Wheatear in the ploughed field, and then a male in the short sward field. At the pool I was pleased to find another year-tick. A drake Shoveler was up-ending in the shallows.

Shoveler

Not quite annual, but half expected, particularly as one has been lingering at Haselor in recent days. At the flash field I counted a pair of Redshank, and seven Teal. Also present were four Mute Swans, another flew past, and the settled pair remain on the back pool giving a record site total of seven.

The Mallard would possibly get my vote for the most boring bird which occurs at Morton Bagot. They are technically wild, but every autumn a hundred or so are released for the local sportsmen to use as target practice, and so by spring we are left with a mixture of wild birds and survivors. Nevertheless I was determined to sketch them.

Mallards

Having got that out of my system I headed back, adding to my Blackcap count (I heard three), and also hearing and seeing numerous Chiffchaffs.

As the sun warmed the air, lots of bees buzzed about, and I also logged the following butterflies; a Brimstone, a Small Tortoiseshell, and about six Peacocks.

A Peacock

It was all very pleasant and spring-like.

Postscript: Birds which have characteristics which separate one race from another make me nervous. I have in the past blogged about Greenland Wheatears, but to me even alba wagtails can be a challenge. This possibly makes me more cautious than I should be. Today, I spotted a pale-backed alba wagtail on the ploughed strip near Netherstead farm. There is a pair of Pied Wagtails nesting in the barn there, and the female is paler backed than the male. So when I photographed the bird in question I rather jumped to the conclusion that it must be the female Pied Wagtail.

Alba Wagtail

However, I was tempted to reidentify it subsequently as more likely to be a White Wagtail. I have recently seen the female Pied which nests there, and it is darker backed than this bird, while I think the white flanks are a good indicator of White. The rump colour is pale where it joins the mantle, but may be darker only a little way towards the tail. If this is the case, then this bird should be considered as a paler than average female Pied Wagtail whose superficial appearance is a good cautionary tale against a hasty identification of White Wagtail.