Each year I usually get the opportunity to go up to our reserve at Beckingham Marshes near Gainsborough to do a breeding bird survey. So, this morning I made my way up there, arriving on site for 07.00 on a beautiful, sunny spring morning – albeit with a definite chill in the air.
I don’t usually get the chance to see the reserve at this time in the morning and very pleasant it was too, with displaying lapwings, singing skylarks and tree sparrows chirping away from the hedgerows. In total I saw four pairs of lapwing on site, with their distinctive tumbling flight and ‘peewit’ call. 12 skylarks were singing and I was treated to an excellent song flight by a meadow pipit, flying up and descending back to it’s fence post perch.
Whitethroat, reed bunting, blackcap and yellowhammer were also singing away and there was a pair of shelduck and a pair of shoveler on the wet scrapes. Beckingham has a healthy population of tree sparrows and they can be heard calling from many of the boundary hedgerows – they were certainly in full voice this morning as I made my way down the visitor trail to the viewing platform.
Back at Langford, the good birds are still showing well, with a female marsh harrier over Phase 2 yesterday morning and a wood sandpiper on Phase 2 today – thanks to volunteer Graham Gamage for the record. Our lapwings and little ringed plovers are displaying too and can be seen from the viewing screen on Phase 1.
Unfortunately however, my butterfly transect wasn’t as successful yesterday, with only 15 individuals recorded, on what was a warm, sunny and still afternoon. For the 1st May, this isn’t very good at all to say the least! Species recorded were peacock, small tortoiseshell, brimstone, green-veined white and my first orange-tip of the year, a beautiful male on the public footpath near the woodland. And I haven’t had any more joy in re-finding our potentially rare hoverfly – so please keep looking!