142.85 YTD.

“It’s been a funny old week.” Starting off with 140 year to date, things seemed to drift around, but culminated in a high end to the week.... hold on, don’t get too excited!!

Sunday 20^th March and another trip for family reasons to Surrey. All 3 passengers well asleep, so they miss the 3 Red Kites circling above the junction of the M1 and the magic roundabout (M25). 

These aerobatic beauties seem to spreading their wings (sorry!) and their territory further from the Chilterns. My sightings used to be confined to the M40 from Stokenchurch to Oxford, but now the M25 from Junction 16-20 is a further area to see them.

Tuesday, Chris and I had a morning constitutional around Attenborough gravel pits, in the hope of seeing Green and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers (failed), but we did come across a nice group of male and female Red Crested Pochards. 

Being diving ducks, they are worth watching particularly the males when they dive for food. I first noticed them in the pens at Slimbridge – compacting the feathers on their head, then when they surface the feathers open up. So logical that this stops their head feathers getting waterlogged.

Wednesday, With a couple of hours to spare, I poodled down (again!) to Loscoe Dam to try and spot a Green Woodpecker. Even as I arrived I heard the yaffle, so the odds were good. After about 5 minutes, I saw what I was 85% sure was the Woodpecker circle round the water. Sadly the poor visibility precluded me from being 100% sure, so my year count will now include just 85% !!

If you don’t live in Derby, you may not have heard about the Peregrine (030)borne at the Derby cathedral in 2015, which has turned up at Rutland Water and decided to make herself feel at home on an Osprey nest at the Egleton Reserve.

She doesn’t know it, but her chosen nest is the summer residence of Blue 51, currently either on vacation in Senegal, or on her way back to her nest for the summer. I await news of the meeting of 51 v 030. No doubt the Rutland observers will be closely monitoring developments.

Friday  ANOTHER trip to Surrey, but it was rewarded by another Red Kite on the M25, and then a Ring Necked Parakeet as I was loading the car in Putney.  It’s such a distinctive high pitched call that they make as they fly, that you can’t mistake them.

FANFARE........................   It’s Sunday March 27^th, and I’m at Carsington Water on duty for the morning. A cold but busy morning, busy I suspect because there is another of the independent fun raising sponsored walks that go the full 8 miles round the reservoir. So when I enter the wildlife centre, at first sight the 3 volunteers are lost in the melee.

But within 2 minutes I find myself thinking “one Swallow does not a summer make”, as I see my first Swallow of the year, circling over the water in front of the centre..... and almost immediately afterwards a second Swallow. So is the sequel... “but two swallows doth.”

Add to this good news, I am told by volunteer Pat (with Amanda and Mike) that 3 Sand Martins were seen shortly before I arrived, AND they did a fly past in front of MY newly painted Sand Martin bank. So Pat is off to find her Sand Martin sightings chart which she puts on a wall for the public to see how the Sand Martin migration is progressing and we now wait and pray that squatters will move in.

A strange week, 140, plus the RC Pochard, Swallow and 85% Green Pecker  = 142.85 YTD!!