4 - 4

Not the score in the Toon, Benfica match tonight but i had 4 Song Thrushes and 4 Chiffchaffs singing at the Rising Sun today. It's nice to start getting out at six a.m. birding again. You catch the dawn chorus and miss the majority of the dog walkers and the retards are still soundly tucked up. I did have a teenager cycling past around 6.30 glugging a can of cider. Cup of tea and toast does me these days.
First bird on arrival was the Little Owl in his cubby hole. 42 Fieldfare caught my eye shortly after and while i counted a Skylark burst into song behind me on the old pit heap. 3 Skylarks and 5 Meadow Pipits chased each other as i stood on top of the pit heap for a still chilly ten minutes before heading down to a noisy Swallow Pond.The cacophony of noise was being generated by the fifty or so Black-headed Gulls as they cavorted with each other. Strange seeing 8 Canada Geese on here as they are usually seen off by the resident Swan who did give one of the Canadas grief as i was moving on to the plantation meadow. I lifted a Woodcock as i crossed the meadow shortly before coming across 3 Siskins in some Alders. A Great-spotted Woodpecker drummed on one of the telegraph poles near the visitors centre, close by a number of Greenfinches wheezed. As i crossed the extended car park beside the visitors centre having checked out the trees around a pair of Wrens, so engrossed in the tussle they were having, almost collided with my legs. Dunnocks seemed to be calling from every vantage point along with Robins, Great and Blue Tits. I came across another flock of Fieldfare, numbering 65 this time not far from the A19, as i headed down to a quiet Hadrian Pond where a Snipe lifted from the reed beds. A solitary Golden Plover was noted in among some displaying Lapwing as i headed home.

One of the non singing Song Thrushes.

Following last nights report of the sickening fire in the reed beds at Siddick Ponds today i passed 8 places where fires had been lit either in the drier long grass or amongst scrub. Lets hope we don't have a drought during the school summer holidays !!!