Thursday April 8 - walking the perimeter

After sitting at home moping about the cold weather for the last three days I was glad to be taking advantage of slightly milder, calmer conditions this morning. I had a plan.

I used to regularly survey the breeding birds here. This involves a fair degree of effort, and in the last few years I'd dropped it to once every two years. Then covid came along and last spring's count was deferred to this year. I'm still not overly enthusiastic about counting all the Wrens, Robins etc and I have now reduced it to two early spring counts and two late spring/summer counts. The first involves a walk around the entire perimeter, while the second will be a transect down the middle.

Anyway, I started at the church and headed for the flash field. I hadn't gone very far when a Curlew-like call brought me up short. There has been a Blackbird producing such a call in the church area this spring, so I was prepared to let it go. Then I heard it again, and it sounded very convincing. A quick scan and there it was, a Curlew heading north away from the flash field. There was no chance of getting my camera out in time, so I just watched it go. A real April speciality, but massively in decline in the county (and elsewhere) I can't help wondering if I'll see another here.

Down at the flash, the biggest surprise was a second pair of Avocets. So there was one pair on the furthest flash and another on the nearest.

The pair on the nearest flash

Teal seem to be down to seven birds, a pair of Lapwing flew in, and two Snipe flew from the marshy area between the two flashes.

The rest of the morning was hard going. I counted 20 Chiffchaffs although these may have included some passage birds, and four singing Blackcaps.

Blackcap

The commonest birds were Robins,Wrens, and Jackdaws but I won't know exactly how many there are until the end of the season. A flock of 80 Linnets remain in the weedy field at the south end, and cannot be counted for the survey, although about eight pairs were dotted around elsewhere, and are probably intending to breed.

Linnet

By mid-day the temperature was just warm enough for a Small Tortoiseshell and a Peacock to be on the wing. I also noticed a small group of Butterbur plants.

Butterbur

One of the more striking plants.

It sounds as though the colder weather is set to return over the next few days. Very annoying.