The Birk Bank Circuit.

Tuesday was the anniversary when Steve Graham accompanied me on a circuit of Birk Bank in May 2023. Primarily the reason that day, was to locate a Wood Warbler which had been found a few days earlier in a private woodland. But the hopes of visually finding this locally rare warbler soon died a death, though we did here the distinctive call which is often likened to a spinning coin on a marble slab.

Todays circuit with Steve was a 4 hour experience of some excellent birding which produced 7 Garden Warbler, one up on last years tally of six. Also enjoyed was 5 Cuckoo records which were represented by two audible and three visual, one of which was a female heard to call, then viewed atop of a tree with a Meadow Pipit in attendance and mobbing at times. Six Mistle Thrush seen, including one in flight carrying food into Cragg Wood.

I reckon the odds against the sighting of a Song Thrush singing in the branch below a Mistle Thrush, is a million to one chance....Pump up the volume. Two singing Blackcap, Linnet, Greenfinch, and Redpoll over, and Kestrel.

Common Heath. Ian Mitchell.

To say butterflies and bees were sparse would be an understatement, with only singles of Orange Tip, Speckled Wood, and Small White, but the Common Heath moth was out in force.

I found my first Large Red Damselflies of the year, when a f. melanotum was basking on the boardwalk at Birk Bank bog, and at least 12 teneral drying out and warming up amongst the bilberries along the path and away from the bog....interesting.