BLAKEHILL WHEATEARS

I braved the  cold wind and possibility of a shower to visit Blakehill to look for recently arrived wheatears.  The fence posts lining the track across the plateau are favoured   by these birds and make them relatively easy to spot. 

As hoped I spotted at least three wheatears, male and female, together with a number of skylarks singing. 

GREENHAM COMMON

Paid a morning visit to Greenham Common last Saturday, sadly no dartford warblers seen, but not many other birds either, probably due to the fact that the common was being  invaded by several hundred people emarking on a 'Park Run'! 

Did manage a nice view of a stonechat though, also a greenfinch and linnet. 

stonechat

greenfinch

linnet

pond at Greenham Common

SPRING BUTTERFLIES

Visited the gardens at Englefield estate with Sarah today, and whilst admiring the spring flowers was  able to add orange-tip and holly blue butterflies to my sightings list this year. Managed to get both butterflies settled for once to enable photographs. 

view from the gardens

holly blue

orange tip

COOMBE HILL MEADOWS

An extremely pleasant sunny and warm afternoon at Coombe Hill Meadows Nature reserve, just north of Gloucester today. Today's highlight was watching a pair of garganeys feeding in the flooded meadows from the hide. Other ducks present included teal, wigeon, gadwall, shoveler, shelduck, mallard. Also curlew, herring gull, lesser blackbacked gull , greylag and mute swan. 

Loads of chiff chaffs singing from the willows, and a first sighting of a speckled wood butterfly. 

I followed the path along the side of the canal before crossing over a small bridge on the way to the Grundon hide

chiffchaff

another chiffchaff

comma butterfly sunning itself on the dry ground

view from the boardwalk

which leads to the hide

male garganey

view from the hide; initially the garganey pair were feeding in the flooded meadow 

to the left of the photo

pair of garganey

                                   

                                   
                                       

the hide.. and a peacock butterfly!

singing robin

first speckled wood of the year

MARCH SLIMBRIDGE VISIT

A beautiful March afternoon for my monthly visit to WWT Slimbridge. The Bewicks are gone, but still a flock of white fronted goose remains. Chiffchaffs were singing and a couple of coots were already nesting. A marsh harrier was also seen.

I managed to log the usual 40 or so birds although disappointed not to find the mediterranean gulls or the couple of gargeney present at the weekend.  I took my first Brimstone photo of the year and also ticked off  my first Peacock butterfly of the season. 

avocets, increased numbers on site today

barnacle geese

Members of the noisy blackheaded gull colony on the Rushy Pen

Male brimstone butterfly

black tailed godwits preening or resting

nesting coot

shoveler pair

singing wren

COTSW0LD WATER PARK

I've not entered anything on this blog for what seems like ages.. almost a month in fact. To be honest the weather has been not ideal for birding, and although I've been about a bit, there has been little of special interest and photography has been poor.

Today I spent a short time in the Cotswold Water Park, visiting a fairly new gravel pit where there have been one or two interesting sightings lately. I was told that much of the birding would need be using a 'scope, but I did manage to find some teal and mallards, a cormorant and two little ringed plovers which have returned for the season. As it was difficult to keep my camera still for photos at a distance, I resorted to a short video. 

View of pit 200

great spotted woodpecker seen from the path to the pit, a green woodpecker also heard but not seen 

SHORNECOTE REED BED

 Another beautiful afternoon in this exceptionally warm  winter sunshine  for  an afternoon visit to Shorncote reed bed in the Water parks today. The highlight of the afternoon was perhaps the great white egret which paid a brief visit but otherwise it was fairly quiet really. The usual ducks on the lakes; gadwall, mallard, teal, tufted and shoveler, and a few reed buntings along with blue tits and great tits. Also heron and little egret seen. On the way back to the car, I was surprised to see some yellow hammers in the trees. 

Another   first butterfly for the year was a small tortoiseshell which stopped to soak up the sun on the path.