7 Up....Again!

....and another pik in the amateur bracket by yours truly.

Stonechat Birk Bank 5 May. Pete Woodruff.

Following on from the seven chats on Harrisend 30 April, I found another 7 Stonechat on my latest visit to Birk Bank, they were seen as three pair, the seventh bird a male I regarded as a lone individual independent from the six.

Also seen on this enjoyable if mostly cloudy and cold upland safari, 10 Willow Warbler were seen as an abundant, ever present, and most vocal of our summer warblers, 5 Wren, and 4 Meadow Pipit. Then they came in two's, Chiffchaff, Mistle Thrush, Song Thrush, and Red Grouse, one of which was a female, something of a scarcity in my records despite seeing numbers like 40+ males on visits around Clougha over the years. Raptors seen, 2 Kestrel together, and a Buzzard which showed off its ariel skills hanging and hovering on the wind. I also saw a single Green Hairstreak and a Brown Hare.

Conder Green.

Common Tern Conder Pool. Howard Stockdale.

The absence of livestock on Conder Pool seems to have greatly contributed to an excellent six breeding pairs of Avocet to date, with one nest set to hatch in the coming days, also a pair of Common Tern observed with pairing behaviour as the image above illustrates. A pair of Mediterranean Gull were also seen on the pool behaving in a similar manner, though these were immature birds.

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The Bar-tailed Godwits are at best irregular at Conder Green in my records.

I'm grateful to Howard Stockdale and Ian Hartley in sending me this info and records, and to Howard for the image and clip.