Wednesday 15 April 2009

15th April 2009

The blog is a year old today!
I walked to Earlswood during the early morning. Had 6 Linnets at the Hungry Horse. At the lakes, the weather made things difficult - I had to deal with thunder, lightning and heavy rain, and later on cold, strong winds - but at least there weren't many people around. At Windmill Pool, there was a Common Tern on one of the buoys, 2 Grey Wagtails, a pipit which I believe was a Meadow Pipit flew over the water a few times, and along the south side I saw presumably the same Common Whitethroat as yesterday singing; there was also a limbing Fox in a horse pasture along the western side. At the scrubland south of Windmill Pool, observed 2 Reed Buntings, 2 Willow Warblers and 2 Chiffchaffs (a third was along Windmill Pool's south side as usual). Saw my first female Blackcap of the year around Terry's Pool. Fairly good numbers of hirundines were over the lakes, including 20+ Swallows, 5+ House Martins and 1 Sand Martin (kept checking for a Red-rumped Swallow but didn't see one). Took the footpath that goes very roughly parallel with Norton Lane through Rumbush Farm, and saw 2 singing Skylarks and a male Common Pheasant, but there was no sign of a certain species reported in that area recently that I really wanted to see, or at least hear...

Addendum for 11th April 2009
...Midlands Birder reports on his blog that he saw 4 Red-legged Partridges in a field along Norton Lane in that area. Very nice!!! I know of only one other record of this species at Earlswood in recent years, so I guess this isn't a common bird there.

M.P. Griffiths

2 comments:

Reg Telescope said...

No, I was impressed with the record of red-legged partridge too. Whitethroat would also be a great patch tick for me, but I doubt I'll be back at the lakes for a few weeks now.

midlands birder said...

wow didnt realise they were that uncomon here.i should of taken some pics of them.but i must say there uncommon at lichill too