Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Lockdown Diary: Wednesday 6.5.20

As it is another sunny day, it felt like it was going to be more of the same, this morning on my cycle to Ferry Meadows CP and back again. I was enjoying listening to the two Nightingales still singing away in a battle for territory, when, at 7.25am, I got a text from a friend saying he had found a Whinchat, not far away, by the Nene Valley Railway (a local steam line). I was in the scene in a few minutes and we soon relocated this distant female Whinchat, but it almost as quickly slipped from view.
It was in a rough and ‘weedy’ ditch which heads out into an arable field and has attracted a decent few Whinchats (and the odd Redstart) over the years, particularly in autumn. I carry a small scope in my rucksack, and balanced it on my bike to watch the chat (before it vanished… ).
A few minutes later, what appeared to be the Whinchat perched up a few metres from where we last saw it, on the top of an Elder bush. But, when I scoped it, it wasn’t a female Whinchat at all, it was a pristine, male! After a couple of minutes it, too vanished, and neither bird was seen again! It is odd how birds which habitually perch on the top of bushes, trees, fence lines and tall weedy plants, can disappear with such ease!

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