Good morning
Well we had a beautiful walk this morning. I know 4.30 sounds early and it is, but it was well worth the early rise. Unfortuantly i did not bring a camera out with me so i can not share any pictures with you.
As the sun started to rise we looked out over the draper scrape towards the rising sun with mist lifting off the water and silhouettes of birds moving around on the scrape, very atmospheric. We were rewarded with grasshopper warbler reeling and showing briefly from the warbler hide ramp, a number of sightings and not just hearing of cettis, willow warbler and chiff chaff, black cap and garden warbler singing in bushes right next to each other so we could compare their songs, reed and sedge warbler sitting up singing and showing well and whitethroat. Sadly we dipped out on lesser whitethroat which can prove quite elusive and did this morning.
The mist began to clear as the sun rose higer taking the deep chill out of the air until it left us with a beautuful sunny morning with plenty of blue sky. Also enjoying the sun were cuckoo, plenty of song thrush, blackbird, robin, wren, dunnock, reed bunting, lapwing joining in the song. Although it can be a bit hard trying to pick out birds siniging when you are very close to the black headed gull nesting rafts, i am not sure they are ever quiet. Other sightings included Great tit, blue tit and long tailed tit, stock dove, pheasant, great spotted woodpecker, mute swan, greylag and canada goose, shelduck, little egret, pied wagtail, little grebe, pochard, tufted duck, mallard, gadwall, herring gull, common tern, chaffinch. (i am sure i have forgotten some). We dipped in the kingfisher hide and both kingfishers were showing really well outside the bank with both birds on the same stick for a while which was lovely to see.
However our suprise for the morning was a Nightingale singing near to the turnstile but very close to the path so very loud! We were just wandering past and out of the elder bush came this loud burst of song, which stopped suddenly, we all turned to look at each other "isn't that a ... " and sure enough he was off singing away from the dense cover of the elder bush. A great treat!
So all in all a great morning and i hope you can join us next year.
Thanks
Vicky