Garden Birds

Its springtime, which mean the only nice weather of the year and revision. However, we have a new garden regular, with a lovely male phesant. Today he was picking scraps from under the bird table and picking seed out of the bottom section of the bird feeder. It is in lovely condition, considering that it must be living in the gardens and fields around the area, where it seems to be the only one. It has been around for a few days, so hopefully its got a bit of road sense and will continue to survive...
  We also had a woodpigeon on the lawn with the phesant, though not as unusual as the phesant, its still not a regular in the garden. It must be a humbling experience for the woodpigeon no longer being the biggest bird in the garden.

Garden Phesant

Maybe not our most exciting garden visitor ever, but certainly the most extravegant. We only saw him a couple of times, over a week, but in that week he was a frequent visitor and it was quite exciting to see

Swifts

Its been a while, I know, but what with one thing and another (exams and the card reader broken (again)) I have not been able to get out birding, and when I have I am then unable to post the pictures with it.
  However, today while at school I could have sworn I heard a swift numerous times, but it took until late afternoon before I actually saw them. There were two flying high above the school calling loudly, which are my first this year

Bank holiday soil hell

So having dipped on yellow wagtail, and seeing as though I was dagged away from my revision books i decided to make for soil hell. It was very sunny, which is a condition not normally experience on soil hell, but theres a first time for everything.

  It was pretty barren, Im not going to lie. On the top I flushed a curlew which flew of towards ogden and there was also a lapwing circling. Since it was circling I decided to beat a hasty retreat off the top

-Curlew

It was a pretty brief visit as I needed to get back, so i did not descend to try and get the sedge warbler. In some of the more permentant pools on the top I spotted a few tadpoles and there were the remains of some frogspawn.

  On the way out I came across a lovely wheatear, and upon trying to sneak up on that I spotted two lovely skylarks really close. I was able to get some resonable photos, but in the sun it was better to just enjoy them as their rustic plumage was showing up rather nicely. There were a number of others singing around me too. 



-Skylarks

Bank holiday

I between my revision, I got a text saying that there was a yellow wagtail up at the raggalds flood. Sometimes there are opportunities not worth missing, and this was one. So I put down my books, grabbed some kit and headed up. What did that take, 10 mins?, but there was no wagtail there when I arrived. Luckily it was not a wasted journey as there was a very lovely lapwing, as well as numerous swallows skimming and collecting mud. After some ten mins there a female wheatear and pied wagtail turned up, so it was worthwhile in the end, though said yellow wagtail never showed itself.

Small Magpie

since the warm weather descended, all the lovely insects have appeared. I have already seen small tortoiseshell butterflies and peacock butterflies, and today my dad pointed out a small magpie moth.