Tickety tick

The first House Martins (PYT 86) appeared at home yesterday, although none are prospecting for homes yet. Also the Swifts are now here, with 3 or 4 flying around the village.

A Little Egret flew south over the house this morning at 07:45 - 87 for the year and my 94th species in the Parish :-)

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Still not a lot

A quick jaunt around the lanes yesterday produced my first Swift of the year (before Sand and House Martin!). The pair of Oystercatcher remain on Tin Shed Lane, although they (or another pair) flew over the garden a few times yesterday.

The senior half of team Wilson is doing a big sit from his patio/conservatory today and was on 33 species by 07:00, although he did miss a Cormorant - I did shout it from my office window at 06:00!

I'll be spending the rest of the day preparing for tomorrows bird race in Bucks with Si and Rob from The Weakest List and Ben 'I don't bird my patch enough' Miller. We may even post and tweet progress...then again we may not.

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Ticking along

Added Grey Plover and Scaup to my Broom yearlist yesterday. What are three Scaup doing here in May? Crazy!

They're not purple

...or heron shaped, but six Blackwits and two Dunlin have just gone straight through Broom tonight.

Lesser Whitethroat

Singing at Rudd's Farm.

Other than that it was dull, grey and cold. And very quiet. The cold North wind really suppressed avian activity this morning.

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considerably less than thousands

Not quite as exciting as Simon's ticktastic day, but at Linford this evening, 2 singing Garden Warbler were new in.  The Cuckoo was still calling and a Kingfisher zipped past the hide.

The water levels are the highest I've ever seen them though, so whilst a few Coot nests are still visible, I imagine Oycs, Canadas, swans and possibly even the Kingfishers have had their nests destroyed.

Linford is normally very slow to drain too, so I don't expect to be seeing the bund for a couple of weeks.  Hopefully though the newly arrived Acro's have got plenty of time to nest successfully once the water goes down.

No sign of the Pochard, the Garganeys or the Wigeon either.

Migrants ! thousands of em !

Wow !

What a day on the patch .....

But first a mention of the two GADWALL that were happily swimming around the Flood Plain @ 05:40 yesterday (30th April) (YT-71)

Spent a few visits this am on visiting the Flood ! but other then a pair of Canada and 6 Mallard , not much happening , the water had receeded by about 3 feet , but still covered a lot of the hollow.

@ 3pm i went to pick the kids up from school and decided to stop at the Abbey Paddocks , after scanning the field a few times i had almost given up when a bit of buff jumped out from behind a horse turd , it looked good through the bins , got the scope on it and confirmed  it was a Male WHINCHAT (YT-72) - Great looking bird , it looked as though it was calling a lot and kept looking skywards , not one i was expecting at all this year ! Still need a bloody Wheatear though !

Whinchat Baby ! With attendant Horse Poo

Wondering where the hell it is !

I then saw a Single BARN SWALLOW cross the road as I headed away.

At 17:35 a chance phone call to Rob meant that i was outside in the Garden , while chatting away about Migrants and stuff , i happened to look up , Common Tern , i nearly shouted , but then it banked about 40 feet in the air and a second one joined  , showing grey body gleaming white tail streamers and wings ! I struggled to find bins while on phone to Rob and the birds headed off south ! ARCTIC TERN tastic ! (YT-73)

While getting over the shock , 5 BARN SWALLOWS flew over northeast , closely followed by 4 SWIFTS !! (YT-74)

A further 8 BARN SWALLOWS were seen as I drove to pick up Jessica again !

Wish i had the time to check the patch properly today ......