Last Saturday morning of the Birdsong course today, and another beautiful day. Everyone seemed to enjoy what we were doing and the strides they've made in recognising bird song was evidenced by the vastly improved scores on the test (always a relief for me as teacher!).

Moth trap had bugger all in it, so I strongly suspect the light is at fault. Hope the actinic comes tomorrow!

Interestingly, 3 "alba" Wagtails (British race is Pied, Continental is White) flew over heading north during the afternoon. I usually have one every few days, so these could have been migrants and therefore perhaps White Wagtail. I'll never know for sure but it's interesting to speculate!

25th May 2012

Another lovely day. No joy on the moth trap front, so I have taken drastic measures. The futile one is to put the trap on our flat roof in the hope that its light will be broadcast further.

 The sensible one is to order an actinic CFL lamp from Paul Batty, which is reckoned to increase hauls on even the best blacklight dramatically. I can't wait!

24th May 2012

Whew it's hot! Lovely weather, so mustn't complain, although I have been working inside on a bathroom this week. Still managed to spend some lovely evenings outside in the back garden, and have run the moth-trap on the warm nights, although to no avail!

A picture below from yesterday evening, of a couple of Collared Doves that have paired-up. It's fun seeing how they react when I impersonate them!



18th May 2012

Gardening in Earls Barton and Rushden today. That birds are feeding young was evidenced by 2 Robins and one Blackbird "following the plough" so to speak, coming to within 3 feet of me to pick up the  worms and grubs my activities revealed!

17th May 2012

Evening birdsong course went well again, although not quite as much birdsong as on Saturday, but this enabled us to focus in better on individual birds. A brief snatch of Stock Dove song was the highlight, although only a couple of people managed to hear it.


13th May 2012

Spent the whole day outside in the garden. As is my wont I keep a bird list. Only 20 today, although it did include 4 species of raptor (Buzzard, Sprawk, Red Kite and Hobby).

12th May 2012

What a beautiful day it has been! Glorious sunshine - a perfect day for teaching people bird song. All the usual suspects were about in Lings Wood, but the absolute highlight was a female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker which performed for the whole group for 5 mins in the open treetops near to Lings House. First one I've seen in, well, I don't know how long!

Lovely friendly group of people too. Looks like being a great course, again!


11th May 2012

What a difference a bit of sunny weather can make! Lovely day today enabled a few outside jobs to be tackled.

In addition I updated and amended the first presentation of the series of four for my "Beginning with Birdsong" course that I'm running for the Wildlife Trust at Lings Wood in Northampton. I'm really looking forward to it again, especially as the weather is set to be sunny albeit a bit cool.

9th May 2012

A morning sorting out the allotment, albeit rather a grey and miserable one, got a few new birds for the year. Both Lesser Whitethroat and Whitethroat were singing from the surrounding hedgerow, and an Oystercatcher flew over calling.

This latter record is encouraging as Oystercatchers are usually present in the valley during the spring in most years and are likely to be breeding. Hopefully this will be the case this year.

5th May 2012

Despite the never ending rain I managed to get outside a couple of times this week. Whilst gardening on the edge of Rushden on Wednesday there were Willow Warblers singing and Swallows passing through. This pales into insignificance compared to what the brave souls have been seeing - literally hundreds of grounded migrants have given record breaking numbers at Northants birding hotspots - see Mike Alibone's website (in "Lovely Links") for a summary.

Yesterday I stopped briefly to look for the Cattle Egret that has been frequenting fieldsaround Harwater Crossing for the past few days, but unfortunately drew a blank. The height of the River Nene was frankly alarming!

Later I found and Angle Shades at the bottom of a fence, freshly emerged. That was a nice bonus!