106 Days

To get to 110 species on my Patch. Not bad...

Yesterday I wandered to a site that shall remain nameless due to the very welcome presence of Cirl Buntings. :) A couple of Swallows made the Patch Yearlist 108, but my [admittedly rather faint] hopes of adding exotics such as Redstart and Tree Pipit failed. Lots and lots of Blackcaps, a few Willow Warblers and a very showy Nuthatch above an abundance of flowers helped make a long walk in ever-increasing heat worthwhile. Later, most frustrating news of an Osprey having flown over my Patch while I was having tea and thus unable to hear the gulls freaking out. Drat!!

This morning, as I was getting ready for an early visit to the Nose, I did hear the gulls go off and just got a glimpse between the rooftops of a large bird flying north under Herring harassment. Osprey? Nope. Purple Heron?? Nope. Black Stork??? Nope. Grey Heron. Oh well.

Hope's Nose seemed fairly quiet at first - a few Willow Warblers in the Top Dell and a couple of Whitethroats lower down. The most notable encounter threatened to be the huge mastiff which came up behind me and barked like I'd broken into his house and taken his food bowl... [[On a lead? You are joking..]] Giving the Hound and his cheerily unbothered owners a good amount of space let me hang around long enough to count 4 Whitethroats and also to be there for a Whimbrel to arrive and start picking through the weed on the exposed rocks. 109. A female Wheatear sat on the Wall for a few minutes looking cute, but it was after she moved and I looped around the bottom and was getting to the fence that the fun really began. A warbler was singing from inside the thick blackthorn scrub where the north and middle paths converge. A very odd-sounding thing indeed, it had me wondering about small sylvias and the benefits of MP3 players loaded with birdsong...

There ensued nearly 40 minutes of hide and sing - the bird moving through the bushes without showing itself while assorted Whitethroats, Greenfinches, Dunnocks, Wrens, Robins, Blackbirds, Blue and Long-tailed Tits all tried their best to run interference. Fishermen and wog dalkers came by chatting; sometimes it shut up, sometimes it moved, sometimes it ignored them.. Eventually I got lucky; creeping up the north path I got an earful of song, and raised my bins to find myself staring down the throat of a Sedge Warbler!! WTF?!?? A migrant in sub-song [thus sounding very different to the mounting crescendo you normally get], this was not something that I had even considered - why would one be here, in such a dry part of my Patch? Daft in hindsight, of course - if I can get Reed Warbler on my Garden List, then anything could be anywhere.

Icing immediately popped up as a Garden Warbler hopped into view. No 'two bird' theories here, as it had been disturbed by a family group coming down for some fishing and ducked into the depths, followed by the Sedge. Another Patch Tick and what a way to get to 110. :D Wait, there's more. As I was heading back along Loaded Loop [that'll be Ilsham Marine Drive, aka the most expensive address this side of Sandbanks] I was stopped dead in my tracks by the sound of a Gropper reeling in the back garden of [Rich Person's House]. Late morning, bright not quite sunny day, there it went like a fairy's pneumatic drill...

Went out for more this afternoon. The best I can say is that I got sworn at by a Blackcap. C'est la vie.

PYL: 110