We started off with a wheatear on the field next ot the car park on Friday morning, and great views of a cuckoo using the fence posts as look-out posts, and finished with our first swifts of 2011 on Monday evening. In between, we've been listening to 10 species of warbler, a nightingale and many other song birds (which bodes well for our dawn chorus walk next weekend), and had a number of migrating waders putting in appearances. These included common, wood and green sandpipers, greenshanks and whimbrels. One lucky visitor saw a turtle dove passing overhead. Common terns seemed to be over all the lakes, and you could see several hobbies in the skies too. Several greylags now have broods of goslings following them. The cuckoo was visitor-friendly again on Monday, so once again visitors could see it through our telescope.
The fine weather has brought out lots of butterflies, most numerous being orange-tips and speckled woods, and the first damsal and dragonflies.
Roll on next weekend - its another 4-day one, and we'll have our information point in the car park on Friday, watching out for avain nuptials rather than the TV version. The big question is "will the weather be as hot?"