Thursday 1 June 2017

Spring in to summer

Hello

Very warm and sunny today locally, and this brought forth a small invasion of Painted Lady butterflies, many of them hurtling past at an incredible rate!

The singing Grasshopper Warbler was still in a weedy field between Lamport and Blueberry Farm this morning and birds at Harrington Airfield this evening included a Turtle Dove, a couple of pairs of Grey Partridges and a singing Reed Warbler in a bank of Blackthorn! Please note that ringing operations on-site tomorrow morning will make the old airstrip and bunkers out of bounds.

A check of the tern rafts at Pitsford Reservoir today suggests that 38 pairs of Common Terns are attempting to nest. The pair of Oystercatchers still have two live chicks but two have died. A Greylag Goose is also nesting on one of the rafts!

Chris Payne ringed a young male Goldfinch at Bradden (South Northants) on 1st December 2016. Sadly this bird killed itself on a glass conservatory on 24th May this year, the location being Uggool, Moycullen, Galway in Ireland, a distance of 562km in a WNW direction. We receive very few recoveries from Ireland but it seems that this bird was intent on breeding there.

Regards

Neil M




So that's what a Turtle
Dove looks like!
Images courtesy of Robin Gossage.

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