Saturday, 8 August 2009

Fine weather slows things down

What a glorious day - though not conducive like passage as yesterday, and very sunburn inducing!

This morning, with Steve Rodwell, we had good views of 2 COMMON REDSTARTS (a juvenile male and an adult female) in the western end of Incombe Hole; Dave Bilcock had earlier seen a juvenile female as well. In the cereal field between Incombe Hole and Pitstone Hill, a male COMMON QUAIL was eventually heard singing briefly, and 4+ Corn Buntings were around the field.

Moving round towards Ivinghoe Beacon, at 11:10 I had a juv/female-type MARSH HARRIER go due south over - I also almost missed it as I was looking for butterflies and looked up by chance just in time to see it overhead! I was able to watch it fly away and circle just once.

Moving on, early afternoon I had a Shoveler at Weston Turville, the first I have seen in the Tring area since mid-May. There were no large gulls on a disturbed Halton airfield, and I failed to find any large flocks in the area.

Into Herts briefly, just one Green Sandpiper and one Little Egret at Wilstone were noteworthy.

Finally, at College Lake, I found 3 COMMON GREENSHANKS feeding on the back bank behind and right from the main Island - 3 of the 4 that graced Wilstone last night, as Roy has already pointed out! There was also a drake Pochard on the main lake and 2 Lesser Whitethroats and 2 Linnets in the scrub (Ben Miller)

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