Sunday March 7 - Back in cold storage

 All the spring-like optimism at the end of February seems rather misplaced at the moment. It's been cold all week, and this morning was no exception. Largely cloudy with a faint whiff of southerly, but a cold one.

A text message from the ringers, who were operating at Middle Spernal today, informed me they had caught a Chiffchaff. Unfortunately I was not able to match that. The flashes all had a veneer of ice although they still supported 34 Teal, three Wigeon, 12 Mallard, a pair of Shelduck, and five Lapwings.

Back at home my walk to the paper shop took me past two singing Blackcaps, and half a dozen singing Redwings, but at Morton Bagot all was quiet, and the only Redwings I saw were too busy feeding to burst into song.

This Redwing was cocking an ear to listen to Wren alarm calls in the bushes above

Shortly after failing to discover what was causing some mobbing activity in a corner of the plantation, I flushed 24 Meadow Pipits from a corner of the ridge field. They were the nearest I came to observing the passage of migrating birds.

Meadow Pipit

Mammals don't get too much of a look-in as they rarely do anything interesting, but for the benefit of posterity I should record that a herd of eight Roe Deer which scampered off across the ridge field represented my largest count here to date.

Given all this mediocrity I was wondering what I had to write about this week. Thank goodness for the ringers. They had been trapping at Morton Bagot yesterday, and kindly sent me their results.

Common Snipe 1

Blue Tit 2

Great Tit 3

Long-tailed Tit 2

Treecreeper 1

Song Thrush 1

Dunnock 2 (inc 1 re-trap)

Linnet 4

Common Snipe - Tony & Leigh Kelly

It was too cold for insects this morning, and I was expecting that the same would be true of Friday night when I put my moth trap out in the garden for the first official Garden Moth Survey session of the year. But despite sub-zero temperatures I peered into the trap on Saturday morning and found three Common Quakers resting there.

Common Quakers

These rather plain patterned moths are among the first to emerge in spring, and although they were not my first this year, I was amazed that they were able to fly when it was so cold. I left them in peace and they had all departed by 21.00 on Saturday night.