It’s inevitable when you are known as 'the birdman' that you
get calls at this time of year. Last night it was a friend in the village
ringing about a young Swift that had fallen down their drainpipe. I’ve never
seen Swift in the hand before…
We tried relaunching it a couple of times but it wasn’t
quite developed enough to take flight so we ended up fetching a ladder
from the church and heroically Tracey, who has no head for heights, slipped it
back in to the nest…
Then last week there was an envelope slipped through the
door containing this…
This Treecreeper had flown into a neighbour’s window. It’s
doubly unfortunate because they are so scarce in the parish these days
(although I did see one in the Magic Garden today and another prospecting the lime
trees on the village green).
The week before that it was the guitar group knocking to say
one of the young Swallows had fallen out of its nest in the church porch. I
only had a pair of step ladders but thanks to a particularly tall member of the
group we were able to put this back too and it has now happily fledged.
There seems to be the first early signs of birds on the move
this week. I added Hobby to the year list and a Yellow Wagtail and a small
group of Curlew flew high over the Magic Garden. Four Oystercatcher flew over
the house and I had a brief glimpse of a chat down Back Lane today, most likely
a young Stonechat. There were also four young Yellow Wagtails along the lane.
It’s been a productive week on the dragonfly front too
adding Southern Hawker, Common Darter…
Common Blue Damselfly and this ovipositing Emperor to the
year list ….
All of these were in
the Magic Garden.
Two out of three ain't bad.....I suppose, what a shame about the Treecreeper though. Good to hear that you're still seeing them around.
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