As has been the case lately, the mornings have not been conducive to getting out early. (rain or lethargy)
This afternoon, I had a narrow window for a garden stroll. Happy to see a slight uptick in Butterflies, and today the first garden Dragonfly of the year - not surprisingly a Large Red Damselfly.
I did a bit of sky-watching, Swift is very due, and was rewarded with a Red Kite for the month, and then teased with a couple of high, interesting looking Hirundines.
Fortunately the Hirundines eventually came lower, got into a better position and revealed themselves to be, as suspected,
#86 Sand Martins. My earliest by 3 days.
It’s a bird suspected more often than confirmed, usually due to light or height.
The only other news is another partially fallen tree, the one Great Spotted Woodpeckers bred in last year.
A lot of noise coming from under our decking, suggestive of newly hatched Grey Wagtails.
And the continuing, extremely slow, withdrawal of the work site at the bottom of the garden, associated with the new Fish ladder. Hopefully more about this in the next few days.
. So using all my 60 plus years' fieldcraft(?) I discreetly crept out from under the overhanging roof over the terrace to try and capture an image of the bird posed nicely. Of course it saw me first and took off, doh! I managed five shots in all, one shows a blur which could be a bird, three are nice pictures of grey sky and just one with the bird almost in focus, just in shot but with the terrible light it doesn't show a lot. However, using Paintshop to lighten and contrast a little you get the picture, a 2nd year male. I attach the original and the lightened version (With the lightening process the watery sun glinting off its head is exaggerated and the bill seems to fade away!).
