And now for a short intermission

Sunday May 15^th  a little meander round Markeaton Park with nothing out of the ordinary to report. 

I did watch a nice male Great Spotted Woodpecker searching for grubs as it worked its way up a dead tree, and heard plenty of bird song. But we are now in the difficult times for birdwatching, with the green foliage obscuring what may be there, and we have to depend on song and calls for the next 4 months.

............ and that could not be more true on Tuesday 17^th May at Whisby in Lincs.Whisby has always been a good site for Nightingales, although your patience gets seriously tested to see if you can see the bird that you CAN hear. 

Chris Tony and I could hear 2 Nightingales the other side of the railway, but no way could we see them, and a bird photographer with rigor mortise watching one particular branch, was just waiting for the right moment for that perfect picture, was equally unsuccessful.

Anyway, we did tick a nice Med Gull amongst 5000 black headed gulls (well it seemed like that, especially with the noise), an Oystercatcher on eggs, and a lovely Garden Warbler amongst a range of warblers.

After a good lunch at Whisby (at another eatery featured in the Egon Bennett guide to birding fast food outlets) we found our way to the newish RSPB site at Langford Lowfields, just north of Newark, and which I had not visited before

The site is large and still partially a working quarry. After a 600km walk, we found ourselves at the Beach Hut, a quaintly named mini visitors centre, (sorry...here we go again... it is the centre which is mini, not the visitors) manned on this occasion by a group of young volunteers. 

The perfect bird for us to end our day, and qualifying easily as BOD, was a Hobby. So this takes me on to a respectable 170, which at 17^th May handsomely compares with 2015 when I only counted 170 for the whole year.

Unfortunately, as I have hinted in the last couple of blogs, all good things are having to go on hold as I am about to pack my overnight bag for an operation followed by a longish stay at the Royal hospital in Derby. So I’m afraid that my blog will be on hold for a few weeks, not least of all because there aint much to be seen from a hospital ward window, and that’s assuming it HAS a window! And even when I get home I’m afraid recovery will be lengthy.

Thank you to all the relatives, friends and fellow birders who have sent me good wishes for my operation, some from as far as from Majorca, Devon and even Belper!!   I hope my (warped-) sense of humour will not be diluted, and one friend has suggested I write a book whilst in confinement to maintain my writing style.

I am able to various statistics about readers of my blog, which tell me amongst other things the home country of readers. Currently they are in Ireland, Russia, USA and Poland to name a few, and I sometimes wonder what makes them look at my article. Maybe they were just surfing, or possibly lured by the heading on the entry.

For example, I can see that the blog headed “so bald heads ARE attractive to birds”, on the 24^th April had more hits than any entry from Feb to May... I wonder what they expected?  

I hope that some readers may feel inclined to add a comment on an entry you enjoy, perhaps with your own experiences or sightings, and foreign comments would be very interesting..... to everyone. Just click on “No comment” at the end of post, and follow the stages through. You will then find that YOU are in print.

TTFN