And when the fog clears where do you start looking for the Wheatear!
By lunchtime the sun was out and the mist burnt off but another scan of the paddock fences in East Malling (and there are a lot of them) failed to turn up a Wheatear or Black Redstart. However, looking to the skies I was pleased to see another 3x Buzzards drifting N over Paris Farm, East Malling with a Sparrowhawk drifting high above them.
A Mistle Thrush, hugging the ground and twisting it's neck around snake-like, made my heart beat that bit faster, I thought I might have an early Wryneck - but a second bird joined it and it showed itself for what it really was!
Mistle Thrushes - the right-hand bird was 'snaking' it's head around and lying low in the grass ala Wryneck!
I took a quick look at Ditton Quarry - Chiffchaffs singing but nothing else out of the ordinary. I checked out the 'orchid' rosettes that Greenie has been prodding me to check. Here's some pics Greenie - I've got a feeling they're Bee Orchids (?).
Lots of Bee flies around the quarry walls, no doubt females depositing eggs around the burrow entrances of the solitary bees that live there.
2 comments:
Adam ,
Thanks for the 'orchid' rosette shot , about time !
I know you are still set on Bee , but I'm not going to change my mind , I'm sticking with Early Purple . The amount of spotting on this species can be very variable and the ribbed leaves are very EPO . They should be in flower in about a month , unless they are actually Bees . I'll give you a shout when I start seeing the EPOs in flower , the mistery should then be solved .
Hi Adam.
Once the weather started to clear, you then did well seeing the Sparrowhawk and Common Buzzard together.
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