It’s been a mixed bag of weather and birds in the last couple of weeks. However here is an update.
This morning I was running along Pakefield Beach and noted that the Sand Martin colony in the cliff near Pakefield Coastwatch is coming along nicely – must be more than 40 birds there now. Offshore I saw a Shearwater sp. although I couldn’t tell which species without binoculars. I assumed it was a “Manx” and coincidentally a Manx Shearwater was reported off Ness Point this morning.

My garden has turned up a few interesting birds in the last week or so. A Firecrest (3 this year), several Blackcap and yesterday, a Lesser Whitethroat all added interest to the morning washing up. Another “rare” visitor to our garden was a single Goldfinch which means there have now been 4 records in 7 years (same as Firecrest!!). A stroll down the garden recently disturbed a lovely male Sparrowhawk, which left behind a partially plucked Woodpigeon. He came back at least once while I was outside and the next day the carcase was gone (could have been the Fox I suppose).

Two weeks ago I did the first Timed Tetrad Visit (TTV) of the early summer period. I managed the full two hours and saw 36 species in total. It was a lovely morning bird watching and apart from a late Redwing and Fieldfare the biggest surprise was 2 Kingfisher near Parkhill.

Last week I did a Breeding Bird Survey (which happens to overlap the TTV’s I do) and had to shift my head into a slightly different survey mode – recording by distance from the transect line. Good job I’ve been doing it for over 10 years now, It all came back easily enough. There was nothing outstanding seen but a singing male Linnet was nice and loads of Whitethroat had obviously just arrived. A cracking male Wheatear finished off another lovely morning in the sun.