Sightings of Willow Warbler and Swallow at Dove Stone today, bringing our Dove Stone Birdlist for 2013 up to 58. Last year's Swallow's arrived a full week earlier, on April 12th. Up at Binn Green today I saw a female Brambling, quite late really. Last year we had a record of Brambling at the beginning of April. Surprisingly, we've not got a record of Brambling on our reserve list yet for this year so that brings us up to 59. Also up at Binn Green today both a male and female Bullfinch, male and female Lesser Redpoll, lots of Siskins again ( it did seem to go a bit quiet on the Siskin front for a while after the big flocks of a few weeks back with presumably a lot of these birds moving off to Scotland and farther), 2 Jays, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Coal, Blue and Great Tit, good number of Goldfinches, Greenfinches and Chaffinches as well as Wren, Dunnock and Mistle Thrush. You can see a lot of these birds around the main trail too, of course as well as Meadow Pipits, which are to be seen on the hillsides from all around the trail and Pied Wagtails around the res and on the dam wall. Also seen today were a male and female Wheatear as well as Long tailed Tits in the Life for a Life woods and Nuthatch on the feeders down in the main car park. Curlew also heard today coming from the east side of Dove Stone above the farm fields. We also have reports of a pair of Curlew mobbing a Buzzard at Dove Stone today. More soon...
Curlew: a top bird...
The Curlew/ Buzzard drama may be ongoing. I'm pretty certain I glimpsed something along these lines this morning as I was heading toward Holmfirth, in the area between Yeoman Hey and Greenfield reservoirs. You know what those bends are like though, you've got to keep your eyes on the road, so only a glimpse.
Talking of warblers, are we in the right kind of area for the Grasshopper Warbler? Something that would hang out in beds of rushes, sounds almost like it could be an engine with a dodgy water pump? When I finally saw it, it looked and behaved roughly as described on the species page, scooting around at ground level like a little mouse