Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Wednesday 23rd March 2011


Wall to wall sunshine and warm with it, and the first outing on my shorts this year!  The Nuthatch was calling loudly from the Oaks near the allotments at the top of North Street and a Covey of 5x Bullfinches picked at the few unfurled buds on a hawthorn bush. All the East Malling Paddocks were checked this morning, and a bird on a distant fence post got my heart racing for a Wheatear...but it turned out to be a Meadow Pipit and was eventually joined by nine others. A rare sight for this part of the patch were a pair of Mallards on a small roadside pool just off The Rocks Road.


A quick sortie at lunchtime into Barming Woods looking for reptiles once again drew a blank despite there being some ideal sun-baked habitats for them.



A good tally of 5x Peacocks and 1x Comma sunned themselves on the cinder path at the west end of Oaken Wood.


A Bee Fly hovered around some emerging Coltsfoot and 3x Chiffchaffs flitted and called through the coppice.

Well it makes a change from using arrows!

Best sighting of the day, and unfortunately not recorded with a photo, were 5x Common Buzzards by Dilly Rogers as they soared and displayed over the Research Station, East Malling at 16:30 before slowly drifting N towards the Medway Gap - nice spot Dill! There seem to quite a few Common Buzzards on the move at the moment, with good numbers migrating across the E of the county (see PlanetThanet)

3 comments:

Greenie said...

Adam ,
Re. your search for reptiles yesterday , we often find that when the weather gets too hot and sunny too quickly , early in the year , the reptiles are much less likely to be seen fully out from cover . A case of too hot too quick . They tend to 'mosaic bask' , that is getting the warmth but whilst still mostly covered by vegetation .
Like the 'new' arrows .
Any news on those rosettes ?

Warren Baker said...

Ive had a few ''almost a Wheatear'' moments too Adam :-)

Paul said...

Hi Adam, as usual, another post by your good self, with the subtle humour thrown in to bring a smile.