Sunday 1 May 2011

International Dawn Chorus Day







Started the day off at 5am doing a dawn chorus walk with 36 punters followed by breakfast at the golf club- very nice. Plenty of songsters including Whitethroat (pic 1), lots of Blackcaps, Lesser Whitethroat and Reed Warbler.
Birding highlight of the day was an adult White-fronted Goose that came down on the islands (pic 1). It was an exhausted un-ringed bird so is either a late migrant struggling to move north or is a bird from St.James Park that is bloated on bread from the 500,000 royal wedding monkies in the park yesterday. There were 6 Greenshank (pic 6) in the evening, one Wood Sandpiper still, 2-3 Common Sandpiper, 3 Green Sandpipers (number back up), 3 LRP (pic 5) and a Buzzard and a Peregrine (pic 4). Only two Shelduck pairs left now. An influx of Swift and House Martin with 20-30 Swift but only 4-5 House Martins which are in very low numbers this year. A few Swallows, 2-3 Yellow Wagtails over and I missed 4 Wheatear on the mound and a Garden Warbler.
Late evening update: Gripper and Nick have just turned me over with 50 Barwits and 10 Knot going east while I was in the bloody bath!

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