12th March

Spring is definitely here! Four Chiffchaff singing in the village this morning…

Fantastic chorus of frogs in the Magic Garden lake (with a heron standing on the path hoovering up any that came out of the water) and an early Comma butterfly…

I don’t need much excuse to mention Waxwings again. No more in the village this week but good numbers at work peaking with a flock of over 100 on Friday.

Otherwise it has been a rather quiet few days. Pick of the sightings was a distant view of a possible Goshawk on the Scruton side of the river. Unfortunately instead of watching it I tried (but failed) to take a photo of it so it remains only a possible. There have been odd reports of Gos about this time of year before so may be birds dispersing to breeding sites?

Also on the same side of the river Andy Johnston had a probable male Ring Ouzel on Thursday. This is a bird I’ve often anticipated for the village so maybe this will be the year?

A walk down to the river yesterday only turned up 20 Teal on the Ox-bow, five Goosander, Little Egret and two pairs of Oystercatchers along the river. Chris Knight had a flock of 12 Siskin but they were just north of my patch boundary.  

Walking down Greenhills Lane today I had my first Red-legged Partridge for the year, there was a nice flock of around 35 Stock Doves, a ‘kettle’ of five buzzards and on the flash here there were 20 Lapwing and seven Shelduck.