Snap H2 ! I also had my first Yellow Wags of the year here earlier, only problem I was up in the fields so not one for the Garden List just yet, to add insult to injury I also clocked 2 Tree Pipits up there, another one still needed for the 2015 GL. So, a bit like Ken perched on his window sill, I’ve got the windows open hoping they’ll fly over the house later.
However, I learnt something this week which came in really handy this morning, after over 50 years’ birding, nearly all within the Western Palearctic, I like to think I know the calls and songs, apart from those of species I’ve never seen of course, so last Monday when I heard a pleasant liquidy trill that I didn’t recognise coming from the sedges and reeds where the Marsh Warblers breed, I was ‘all of a flutter’.
After about 10 minutes up popped a Grasshopper Warbler, so when I got home I checked on Xeno-Canto.org and found the exact same song I’d heard, the little-recorded autumn song thought to be sung by 1st autumn birds apparently. If you’re interested, go to
http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Locustella-naevia?pg=2 - it’s recording no. X172586. I heard the same song this morning just outside the garden, going across the road to an overgrown paddock I flushed, sure enough, a Gropper, my fourth of the month here!
Willow Tits seem to have had a good breeding season (like most species here this year), the young are beginning to wander about a bit now, so yesterday’s bird made up for the total absence of the species in the garden last winter :
87 Willow Tit
88 Grasshopper Warbler
Evening update: catching insects alongside 3 Whinchats, a nice smart young
89 Northern Wheatear
Can't match Jos for mammal sightings, though there were a couple of Pine Marten making a racket outside the other night. In the morning I found that one of them had left a 'present' in the middle of the water bowl I put out for the birds :eek!: - charming!