LRP Love Story

This pair of Little Ringed Plovers at Blithfield Reservoir showed really well on 4th May and produced a great photo love story, exactly like you see in the problem pages but with a happy ending!   All the pictures were taken from a busy main road with no disturbance from me at all.

Catching her eye!

The strutting approach!

RESULT!

 

(We've all been there!)

3rd - 4th May

Carried out some Newt surveys in Staffordshire – farmland with singing Lesser Whitethroats, Whitethroats and Yellow Wagtails; a little look at Blithfield Reservoir from the causeway in the evening of the 3rd produced 14 Arctic Terns and 3 Dunlin.   Between surveys the next day the 3 Dunlin were still on the causeway along with a pair of displaying Little Ringed Plovers and 4 Oystercatchers and there were 2 Common Terns and 4 Common Sandpipers on Gailey Reservoirs before a few hours at Aqualate Mere produced the highlight of 9 Hobbies hawking high over the west end along with 2 Cetti’s Warblers, single pairs of Shelduck and Egyptian Geese and plenty of singing warblers in the warm, sunny conditions.

Hobbies - they were catching something, not sure what, some kind of small insects

Dunlin

Oystercatcher

Moorhens feeding their ridiculous looking chicks!

and this slightly unusual looking House Martin nest at Stafford motorway services, presumably they will continue building the nest right up to the roof and are just using the bottom beam as a support rather than keeping it like a Swallows nest

29th April

A cracking male Whinchat was at Wyke in the morning on the hill at the end of the cart-track (I’ve only ever seen one here before, sometime prior to 2005 – again a male in April in almost the exact same place!).   I then arrived at a sunny, windy and showery Grafham Water at midday where the highlights included my first 26+ Swifts of the year over the reservoir with good numbers of hirundines, especially House Martins and 2 Whimbrel showing well on the dam.

                Other birds included a Cuckoo over the lagoons, a Red Kite, a White Wagtail and 2 Yellow Wagtails on the dam, 2 Avocets, a Dunlin also on the dam and the usual spread of warblers round the lagoons including Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Reed Warbler and Garden Warbler.

 

Great to hear the Swifts screaming again!

In these two pictures you can clearly see the contrast between the brownish flight feathers and coverts and the black body feathers indicating that these are 1st year birds (hatched last year) as they do not moult the wing feathers in their first year and will still have the same feathers that they left the nest with (no wonder they appear a bit brown and faded after a long winter under the African sun!) whereas adults do an almost complete moult in their winter quarters so would arrive back with a more uniform appearence

More Swifts

Whimbrel

Yellow Wagtail

Funky white Pheasant

 

27th April

Walked along the River Severn from Buildwas to Cressage Bridge in the morning where birds included good totals of 22 Common Sandpipers and 6 Little Ringed Plovers, 28 Goosanders with a big presumably non-breeding flock and a female with 17 small ducklings, 7+ Redstarts, a reeling Grasshopper Warbler, 3 Lesser Whitethroats, a Whitethroat, a Yellow Wagtail, 5 Mandarin and a big flock of 85 Stock Doves on the big recently tilled field at Buildwas.

Goosander family

Common Sandpiper

Reed Bunting

Mute Swan 71BA - I saw this bird over at Venus Pool on 14th March this year, today she was down on the river

26th April

Had a look at Whixall Moss in the morning where the majority of the birds of note were on the floods by the canal with a male Ruff feeding on the mud (only seen a couple in Shropshire before!), my first Cuckoo of the year singing away, a male White Wagtail, a Common Sandpiper and a couple of Little Ringed Plovers; the Mosses themselves were pretty quiet as despite it being fairly sunny the brisk northerly wind was still very cold with 3 Wheatears, a few Stonechats, plenty of singing Reed Buntings and some displaying Curlews the only birds to mention.

                The Meres were very quiet apart from 1000+ hirundines over both The Mere and Colemere (mainly Sand Martins) – presumably northward migrants held up by the cold northerly winds, a confiding drake Mandarin on The Mere showing an unhealthy interest in the female Mallards and a Dunlin on Wood Lane.

 

Sexy beast!

Willow Warbler

You ain't seen me, right!

And an honourable mention to this hard as nails Jackdaw which has been visiting our bird table and flying around despite its skull showing!