Is this an improvement...or a brief reprieve?

Wahay! Monday is dry and - are my eyes deceiving me? - sunny! Yep the weather forecast looked good for Monday morning so I got up at dawn and headed down to Attenborough to mop up as much as I could of the recent summer migrant arrivals. I was hoping for Black and Arctic Tern and Little Gull, but none of these were on show. However, I did manage an impressive list of 48 species in 2 hours! 

The difference a bit of sunshine makes is phenomenal. There were birds everywhere and each one had a song in its heart! The Linnets at the Tower Hide were looking brilliant, this female (left) sat up long enough for a snap. Blackcaps stood out warbling proudly, Chiffchaff chiffed and chaffed happily in the morning sun and this Whitethroat was one of many scratching out it's little song from the tops of the low shrubs.

You tell by my writing that even I'm a bit infected by this spring feeling. The new additions to the yearlist came in the form of Sedge and Reed Warbler, Common Tern, the aforementioned Whitethroat (and I'm pretty sure I heard a Lesser Whitethroat too), Swift and to top it off, a quick chat with a photographer on the bridge by the Nature Centre made us pause long enough to spot two Hobbies flying over. A truly fantastic spring morning, and made all the more pleasing by the shiny yellow thing in the sky!


A couple of flowers caught my eye on my wanderings and I wonder if anyone reading this can identify them for me (flowers are still a bit of a black art for me!). No doubt they are common species but one's that I haven't noticed before.

The day just got better with temperatures reaching 19degrees on my way home. "The trap is definitely going out tonight" I thought to myself. "It'll be brilliant!". The temperature stayed around 12 degrees until I got home from the City/Man U game and I inspected the trap.

The only new visitor was this V-Pug, found on the shed wall. In fact he was the ONLY visitor. As the rain started again about 2300hrs I packed the trap away to discover that I hadn't caught anything!

Is the trap not up to spec, or am I still a bit too hopeful? We'll see soon enough I'm sure...


Bird Year List = 136
Moth Year List = 27

Photos and videos from Attenborough 26th Feb

Finally had chance to download my phone to get the pics and videos from last weekend. Hopefully you find them interesting enough to have waited for them!?

Firstly this lovely male Bullfinch stayed still long enough for me to get some footage through the scope. It was in company with 2 females.

On Tween Pond the Yellow-legged Gull put on a good show!

The Bittern showed for us briefly as we approached but quickly crept off back into the reeds. This was the best I could do!



Attenborough pulls a few in

26th Feb - A Sunday afternoon in the glorious sunshine over the weekend couldn't be resisted, so we set sail for Attenborough Nature Reserve. I love a good walk round the pits and woods at this great reserve, there's always something to see and it provides plenty of entertainment for kids too.
We walked from the Barton Lane car park up to the church at Attenborough village and was hoping to get through to the woods at the top to search for the Lesser Peckers, but when we got to the old car park we were blocked by the new flood defence system that they're installing. Instead we cut across to the river and back round to the centre. The birds were out in good force with 46 species in total. A stunning number of Goosanders were present (in excess of 30) but unfortunately the Smew couldn't be found. A couple of Fieldfare were found feeding on Glebe Field. New for the year were Red-crested Pochard, Ruddy Duck and a cracking Bittern which was showing well on Dragonfly Pond (this is the one between Tween Pond and Wheatear Field and is viewable from the main path to the VC). I managed to get a poor mobile grab through the scope, watched it for a minute or so and then it silently crept backwards into the reeds.
Not very often my luck turns out that that! Usually it's "Oh it's just crept into the reeds, you should have been here a minute earlier"
I'll upload a couple of videos of a gorgeous male Bullfinch and a Song Thrush singing his heart out as the sun went down.