8th July

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.