Round town sightings

Yellow Wagtail (Mark Clarke)

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Just no room on one of two remaining islands

Brown Argus

Common Blue

It's been a funny week with the weather. Strong south westerlies brought us our first Hobby over the main areas of the pits that I flushed from the back of the old workings and the heavy cloud cover attracting 250+ Swifts on Friday. A pair of Yellow Wagtail are frequenting the crop near the service road but are not easy to see.

Jon picked up two Ringed Plovers trying to land on Sunday morning but kept going as practically impossible. Jon's full count was as follows:-

8 pairs of Little Grebe with one brood, 1 Great Crested Grebe, 1 Cormorant, 1 Grey Heron, 11 Mute Swan with brood, 55 Greylags, 66 Canada Geese and brood, 8 Gadwall, 135 Mallard, 2 (male and female) Pochard, 62 Tufted Duck, 6 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 90 Coot, 3 pairs of Little Ringed Plover, 2 Ringed Plover circled main pit calling, 3 Lapwing, 5 Black-headed and 12 LBB Gulls, 350 Swifts, 70 House Martins, 2 Green Woodpecker, counts of singing warblers included 40 Reed, 2 Lesser Whitethroat and 12 Common Whitethroat, 1 Raven, 50 Linnets in rape, just 1 Yellowhammer singing.

I visited Spernal at the start of week and had some super views of 2 Barn Owls to the backdrop of 3 Grasshopper Warblers.