Easter Sunday

Hello

Very little to report from our end today with much of it spent in the garden, mostly looking at all the tasks that need doing rather than actually doing many of them!

Nevertheless the April 'birds from the garden list' went up by a couple with the addition of Canada Goose and Bullfinch, but still Song Thrush hasn't materialized. There have been some very still and quiet nights during the last week and most nights I have been able to hear several Tawny Owls, a Little Owl and a Barn Owl. Moorhens have passed over at night twice during the last week too.

Our Yellowhammer flock has thinned out and mostly gone now but small numbers of Reed Buntings are persistent visitors still.

As far as I can tell we have no birds nesting in the garden this year, at least not yet. I suppose with us and the dogs spending so much time in the garden we may have put them off?

Our exercise regime took in Harrington Airfield this morning first thing but the Black Redstart wasn't seen in a brief search. There were two male Wheatears on Bunker Three, as many as ten singing Willow Warblers and two singing Common Whitethroats plus at least two Ravens. Some of the male Linnets up there are beginning to look good with their scarlet breasts coming through.

Regards

Neil M

We don't attract large numbers
of Starlings in our garden at
this time of the year but dried
mealworms is definitely a favourite
of theirs! In the summer we can have
 good numbers of fledged juveniles coming
 in for the same food.

The top image depicts
a female in breeding plumage and the
 bottom bird is a male. The female has a
 pink-based mandible and often shows a pale ring
 in the eye, the male has a blue-based
 mandible and the eye tends to be liquid black.
Already both birds are wearing off the pale
spots which they begin the breeding
season with, and by the end all the spots
will have worn away.