Top and Bottom

I decided to and try to get a part of the top and lower part of my local patch into one walk today( Thursday), as driving past I could see that alot of the flood water had receded , in the event it had not receded enough for me to access the whole area. The species list was a little different but some of the hoped for species were still missed. Sadly I found that the only regular place where Lesser Whitethroat are in my patch had been cut back /destroyed , so I guess that is the end of that. So a healthy 5 BLACKCAP were again the commonest warbler, it appears to be a very good year for them , as it is for WHITETHROATS with 4 seen/heard on the walk. Although very late in arriving they appear to have done so in force this year. On the other hand only 2 CHIFFCHAFF and I think they appear to be down in numbers this year.A singing male REDSTART was nice , its good habitat in the old willows for them .Just 2 SWALLOW over but 14 plus HOUSE MARTINS near to their breeding colony was nice. On the floods themselves were 1 COOT, 3 MALLARD ,2 CANADA GEESE .A large female SPARROWHAWK zipped through the trees. Other odds and sods were PIED WAGTAIL, 2 RED LEGGED PARTRIDGE, STOCK DOVE and a GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER.