The Standlake Birder

   Hoopoe, Lapal Well local is a relative concept you know, after all the nearest stars are in our local universe! I’ve been out and about quite a lot in the past few weeks and the absence of any new twitchable megas has meant mainly local building. I’ve been back to the Wyre Forest and Grimley twice, been to Upton Warren once, seen a Hoopoe in Lapal and visited Middleton Lakes RSPB. I’ve also been out on my local patch recording the arrival of common migrants.    The highlight on my local Pirton patch was my first every Lesser Whitethroat, the scarcer cousin of our Common Whitethroat. I used to see them every year at Otmoor RSPB when I lived in Oxfordshire but have struggled to connect with them locally. I found it in a patch of scrub and identified it on song. I then spent an hour or so trying to see it properly with some success as per the picture below.   Like most warblers, it is insectivorous  and is hence strongly migratory spending the winter months...

  Northern Wheatear Thursday was the kind of day that I’ve been dreaming of all winter, bright and sunny without a hint of wind with summer migrants flooding in. So  anything other than a full day out birding was simply not an option! I like to go out and see Ring Ouzels, the Blackbird of the mountain, at this time of year. They are quite faithful to hilly stopping off points on their migration to their more northern breeding grounds. Locally Bredon Hill, the Malverns and Cleeve Hill are reliable spots for them. I do like going to places I have never been before so I decided to try Clee Hill just 30 miles away in Shropshire where there had been regular reports of up to 7 birds. They tend to move on overnight but are hopefully replaced by new birds spending a day breaking their journey.   The Ring Ouzels were located at a place called Tittertone Clee Hill just outside of Clee village. A long windy road took me up to the summit car park where I met a lady birder you to...

      Lesser Scaup The first Swallow of the year was flying over our small holding on Wednesday, the earliest since we have been living here by some margin. They will soon be repairing and reoccupying their nests in our stables.   Blackcaps and Chiff Chaffs are singing almost continuously around the paddocks and in a couple of weeks a scratchy song from the bushes will announce that the Common Whitethroats are back.   Being a total spreadsheet nerd, I have a workbook which analyses my bird records in everyway you can possibly imagine and a few that you can’t! Over the past ten years I have analysed the additions to my Uk list by month. Not surprisingly October ( average of 3.3 additions/year) and May (2.9) are the most exciting months for rare birds. More surprisingly is that April (0.7) ranks 11 th  out of 12 beating only February (0.6). so, without wishing my life away, I’m looking forwards to May!   With another sunny day forecast on Thursday I thou...