Saturday 10 May 2014

Rant time

The last week has seen the return of wind and some heavy showers and during my brief visits to the patch it was nice to see a steady through put of Wheatears passing through and the addition of species number 73 with the appearance of 2 Sand Martin in amongst a flock of 10 Swallows that were grounded in the high winds .Although there are two small colonies nearby on the river it is a bird that does not show up too often.
I was out at 7am in an effort to correct the lousy coverage over the last weeks and although it was windy some birds are still passing through and some of the summer migrants and resident birds are busy with job of breeding and setting up territory .
 In the hedges this morning were 6 Blackcap, 4 Chiffchaff , 6 Whitethroat , and still 2 Lesser Whitethroat.
A distant Cuckoo called briefly as did a Green Woodpecker. On the pasture a fine male Wheatear rested on his long journey and 7 Skylark were in fine voice. 2 Red legged Partridge ran over the field margin and disappeared from view . A  Pied Wagtail was feeding on a recently rolled field.
Overhead 9 Swallow , just a single House Martin put in an appearance. It was then that species number 74 appeared with the first 5 Swift of the year heading north ,great birds , I love them .
A nice count of 8 Stock Dove were in breeding areas ,and a Moorhen called hidden from a small pond .
 For my Bullfinch fan I managed to hear one but could not find it as it was hidden in the vegetation. 4 Buzzards were taking advantage of the conditions overhead . Willow and I also flushed 2 fine Brown Hares.
In the garden the pair of Blue Tits have failed as the nest box was damaged with the roof being half broken off, I will have to replace that for next year. It is good to see that Blackbirds and Starlings seem to be having a good breeding season locally. Some of our summer migrants are still missing to a larger extent with hardly any local House Martins ,Willow Warblers ,only one passing Yellow Wagtail and still no Spotted Flycatchers.
So the rant , People you must watch and support Chris Packham and his quest to stop the spring hunting in Malta , if you see what is going on it is a disgrace, with everything and I mean everything being blown out of the sky. Write to your MEP ,call the embassy ,boycott the island, I urge you to watch this, its on  U Tube, it will make your blood boil . A similar thing is occurring in the Lebanon ,you can see this on Facebook with a group called Stop the Slaughter in Lebanon ,you will stare in disbelief at what these people are doing to OUR  birds. We have to stop it  now.
The patch list now stands at 74 .
A further update tomorrow