Blimey it’s summer

The Safari successfully dragged Frank as far as Magpie Wood this morning just as the sun peeked over the roof tops.

We were secretly hoping for a Chiffchaff might be calling in either the Golden Triangle or the park, if we could get Frank that far. The Golden Triangle was as far as Frank would go and there were no Chiffchaffs. There was, however, a nice selection of singing birds...Wren, Robin, Dunnock, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Blackbird and Woodpigeon, were in song while Great Tit, Blue Tit and Long Tailed Tit were heard calling and Goldfinches flew around overhead. Not at all associated with the Golden Triangle but seen flying straight over was a Meadow Pipit.

Alarm calls from within the scrub alerted us to a female Sparrowhawk in the air above us, followed shortly afterwards by the male.

After our World Water Day school presentation we stopped off at the nature reserve to deliver some of last night’s left-overs for PL’s favourite family of Foxes. At the school a couple (pair?) of Pied Wagtails were heard from the direction of the staff car park.

Driving through the caravans we saw a couple of House Sparrows (MMLNR #73) on the overly trimmed hedges. Talking of overly trimmed stuff, the dumbed down landscape technicians have been out in force in many areas round Safari-land in the last couple of weeks and in their joy to be using power tools again after the winter break have carved all the flowering shoots of the Ribes and Forsythia bushes; what happened all the council/corporate gardeners with basic horticultural ID skills and pruning knowledge??? Obviously far to complicated in this day and age to not prune everything to within an inch of its stump three times a year...heaven forbid if a bush or shrub was to grow out of ball or lollipop shape or even reach over three feet (1m) tall!!!

Driving along the edge of the mere we saw all the gulls go up, a couple of Oystercatchers and lapwings were with them...we immediately thought ‘Osprey!’ but unfortunately didn’t see any raptors going over, could have been a Great Black Back spooking them or perhaps the Bittern flying across the water from one reedbed to another or ‘just’ a Sparrowhawk...whatever it was we didn’t see it so it remains a mystery. As we parked up by the top gate a Chiffchaff (133, 74) sang from the scrub on the other side of the fence.

We chucked the chicken bones and left but then got talking to a couple enjoying a summery morning walk around the reserve. A Small Tortoiseshell flew past and there were a couple of Bumble Bees flying along the track, the Chiffchaff chiff-chaffed for us too.

It was a glorious morning, 16°C!!!, and we wished we could have stayed a lot longer. 

On the drive out a kindly lady had thrown a copious amount of stale bread on the grass and attracted the attention of a gaggle of gulls so we had to stop to try to get some BiF shots.

Here they come...

 Touch down...

We're a bit annoyed we somehow lost the focus on that last one...it would have been THE shot of the day :-(

 Second wave of attack...

 Scoffed the lot...til next time...

Back in the office our Extreme Photographer checked in telling us he was on the trail of the escaped Kookaburra but had had no luck; he had heard ‘about a dozen’ Chiffchaffs in the short stretch of path he’d been covering behind the zoo.

After lunch we had a quick look at the visibility-poor hazy sea and found only a single Red Throated Diver of note, still in full winter garb.

Where to next? Another long weekend and another trip to the outer reaches of the big smoke for a rather important book launch - no not a sequel to What A Monster Week! although we are looking at providing real page turning hard copies of it -  but will the Sand Martins, Little Ringed Plovers and Garganeys have found the site yet?

In the meantime let us know what's sneaking in to your outback now spring has sprung.