18th April

Well I'm back from my hols and sadly I didn't receive any Meadow bird reports whilst I was away. Today I went to take a look at the Patch and the very sorry state of the floods goes a long way to explaining the lack of any news. The waters are on their last legs now with the floods split into two small sorry-looking pools. The only birds that were around today were 7 OYSTERCATCHERS, a smattering of Black-headed Gulls and a few Mallards. It's all very sad and this means that we're going to have to expect a much more modest year list total this year.

Talking of year lists, I did manage to add a few things to the tally today. Firstly I found a singing male COMMON WHITETHROAT in Burgess Field. This is quite early for this species and they've not yet really arrived en masse in the county yet. Along the river there was a COMMON TERN patrolling the area - these have arrived back at Farmoor now so I was pretty much expecting one to turn up here. Finally I had a pair of HOUSE MARTINS flying over the Meadow so that's all three Hirundine species now seen.

Swallows are back on the Meadow now albeit still in modest numbers

There are still plenty of birds to look out for though we can probably more or less write off many more wader ticks. Yellow Wagtail should be any day now as well as the rest of the warblers. Let's see how the rest of the month unfolds.

No comments:

Post a Comment