Lockdown Diary: Thursday 30.4.20

A strange thing happened today. I went to check on the singing Nightingale (on Coney Meadows, a dense, bushy part of the Ferry Meadows CP complex), and perhaps to get some more recordings. But the bird appeared to have moved to the extreme south-eastern corned or the Hawthorn stand (whereas it had previously favoured the north-west). I figured that after nearly 10 days, it was shaping up to leave, and having a last hurrah from a slightly different part of the potential breeding habitat.
But as I was trying to get in position to make a recording, I was sure I heard another one singing in the distance. And I did. The original north-western corner bird was still in place; we have two singing Nightingales on the small Coney Meadows area. Having not had any here for years, suddenly… I am trying to resist… like buses… Oh dear.
A flock of 15 Swifts dropped down over Gunwade for a short while. And the other highlight for me, today, was flyby drake Mandarin (112 for Ferry Meadows in 2020).

Lockdown Diary: Wednesday 29.4.20

Wednesday proved a much better day for ‘exercise birding’ in these here parts. The weather was brooding and drizzly, with low cloud first thing, which brought down a flock of 7 Arctic Terns from the sky ‘like angels’ as one of my friends put it! They stuck together closely, patrolling up and down Gunwade Lake (the largest of the three lakes) for 25 minutes, before disappearing back into the clouds.
Unusually, for Arctic Terns (which are strictly passage birds here in Peterborough), this flock were calling, with sweet clipped contact calls and light, bell-like trills, quite unlike the harsher notes of Common Terns.
Half an hour later, a Whimbrel whizzed by, heading roughly north-north-east. This non-calling bird was a local (Peterborough area) year tick for me as well as a my 110th bird for Ferry Meadows CP in 2020.
My 111th bird was not far behind, with my first Hobby of the season scaring the living daylights out of all the local hirundines (of which their were hundreds feeding over the water, with particularly high numbers of House Martins).
Other highlights of a bit of a vigil looking over Gunwade were a couple of Common Sandpipers, a single Swift, which buzzed right past my head (not obeying social distancing!), and the song of the Nightingale a couple of hundred metres away on Coney Meadow (present since 21st). Ooh, I also had a Cuckoo singing, as I cycled home.

Lockdown Diary: Tuesday 28.4.20

Today was a real stinker, with respect to weather, so I hardly poked my head out of the window for most of the day. However, a man has to exercise, and as the rain cleared a bit, I popped down to Ferry Meadows CP on my bike in the early evening. And my reward was a couple of Arctic Terns mixing with half a dozen Common Terns. Arctics look so clean and elegant, and side by side with Commons, the contrasts were obvious.

Lockdown Diary: Sunday 26.4.20

The ouzel appeared to have finally left its field. I gave it a while but it never popped out. So, instead, I went for a bit of a bike tour to see what I could encounter. I was lucky to find three Grey partridges in the local farmland and also bumped into a couple of male Wheatears. But then a friend called me to say he had found some new-in Turtle Doves and a very early Spotted flycatcher at nearby Bainton pits. So, I extended my cycle and went up to see the flycatcher and to bathe in the glorious sound of a putting Turtle Dove. There was a small flock of Fieldfares present in the same area, and I think it is the first time I have ever seen Spotted Flycatcher (a traditionally late summer migrant) on the same day as wintering Fieldfare.

Wheatear, near Peterborough, 26.4.20 (Mike Weedon)

Lockdown Diary: Saturday 25.4.20

‘My’ female Ring Ouzel was still in place at the really ‘ouzely’ field it has been in for the last week. Other than that the highlight for me was adding Reed Warbler to my local year list. This is the last of the regular warblers in, around here, and a welcome year tick. personally, I prefer the haphazard semi-virtuoso rhythmless song of the Sedge Warbler to the rhythmic equivalent of the Reed. But they are both great songs.

Lockdown Diary: Friday 24.4.20

Instead of heading to Ferry Meadows CP, this morning, I cycled back to the north end of the Milton estate, between Bretton, Peterborough, and the village of Marholm. The idea was to check the field which held a Ring Ouzel last weekend, and see if any new ouzels had come along. After a few minutes of staring at this field a Mistle Thrush popped out to feed, then a couple of Blackbirds. And after about ten minutes, out popped a Ring Ouzel. It wasn’t a new one, though, but the same rather dull (for a Ring Ouzel) female that my son Ed and I saw on Sunday!
In other news, back at the office (our kitchen in Peterborough), I have heard both Blackcap and Chiffchaff singing, this morning.

Lockdown Diary: Thursday 23.4.20

I am in that weird time period which only happens every decade or more. It is that time during which I have Cuckoo on my year list but haven’t heard a Cuckoo yet! This morning while walking and pushing my bike down the side of a hedgerow down at Ferry Meadows CP (looking for Redstarts), a Cuckoo flew over, silently. I watched it fly off and never saw it again (nor heard it!). So, that takes my Ferry Meadows CP year list to 109 species. Not too bad.

Morning webs, Castor Mill My Peterborough area year list is at 150, but I am trying not to think of that too much, to avoid feeling ‘The Grip’.
Other highlights this morning, included the continuing presence fo the singing Nightingale on Coney Meadows; the continuing sitting of the Red Kites on their nests; three Cetti’s Warblers singing; and a few more Sedge Warblers, Garden Warblers and Lesser Whitethroats than in recent days.
I still await a Redstart!

Speckled Wood feeding on Garlic Mustard, our garden

Water Rail from our garden, night of 11.4.20

Moorhen over our garden, 11.4.20

Lockdown Diary, Wednesday 22.4.20

Today, the birds of the park were much the same as usual. That included the Nightingale still being in the dense bushes of the so-called Coney Meadow area; but today singing much more profusely, as if it had settled in nicely!
Here is a link to recording I made. The traffic racket in the background is the A47 (the main east-west highway linking Norfolk with Leicester (etc) via Peterborough), showing little sign of let up in the lockdown! The Nightingale is the dominant, loud singing.
[Note that with Soundcloud, you have to stop playing at the end, or else it goes on to play all sorts of extra stuff you don’t necessarily want to hear. It is a quirk which Soundcloud has never properly resolved!!]

Lockdown Diary: Tuesday 21.4.20

When we first moved to Peterborough, some 20 years ago, we lived in a different part of town (in the south-west) and Bird Watching magazine was in the centre of the city, just by the river (Nene). But I used to cycle to work along the Nene Valley Railway bordering the Nene. One of the first ‘decent’ birds I found on my way to work was a singing Nightingale at part of the Nene Park called Orton Mere. Since those days, Nightingales have become very sporadic and unusual visitors to the Nene Park area, particularly Ferry Meadows CP. So, it was great to hear a Nightingale in full song at Ferry Meadows this morning, on the dense scrubby and Hawthorn hedgy area called Coney Meadows, my first in the park for several years.
Other highlights (unheard of when I first moved to the city) included seeing two Red Kites sitting on two different nests around the park. Quite remarkable to witness such treasures on a whistlestop cycle before work!

Black Tern, Ferry Meadows CP

Orange-tip and Cuckoo-pint

Lockdown Diary: Monday 20.4.20

The weather was sunny but cooler today. Highlights for me were the continued presence of the ‘reeling’ Grasshopper Warbler by the River Nene, a Kingfisher there, a pair of Red-legged Partridges, the continuing presence of a Red Kite sitting on its nest, and a new influx of a a few more Garden Warblers (what great singers!). Perhaps tomorrow will be the day I finally see a Redstart, Wheatear, Reed Warbler or even a Cuckoo…

Lockdown Diary: Sunday 19.4.20

Sunday was a different proposition weather-wise than Saturday, an altogether sunnier, warmer day. I decided to take a different route, cycling from home with my son Eddie, and heading towards where the Bird Watching office used to be, in Bretton, Peterborough. We took a track which heads out over the northern part of Milton Park towards the village of Marholm. There is a particular field of very short-cropped grass and plenty of big anthills and large oak trees, which is traditionally great for Green Woodpeckers. I have always fancied it as a Ring Ouzel site, but had never seen one there, despite years of trying!
I scanned the whole field and picked up a brownish looking blackbird-like bird. But with a pale patch on its breast: female Ring Ouzel! It was feeding right at the back of the field, alongside a couple of Mistle Thrushes, a few Black birds and even a late Redwing. Ring Ouzel is a very scarce passage bird through the Peterborough area, and one which I have only seen in the Spring (never in the autumn). So, it was a relief as well as a pleasure to find one. I measured the distance, as the ouzel flies, from out house, and it just gets within a 2-mile radius; like in David Chandler’s My2Mile challenge, the closest one I have ever had to my home.
Other highlights from our cycle ride were hearing my first Nightingales of the year, watching a pair of Peregrines ‘doing battle’ in mid-air, and seeing one of the Ferry Meadows Black Terns still in place. We also saw a hunting Weasel, which Eddie claims is his first ever! And we saw some pretty butterflies including my favourite, the Orange-tip.
Of course, my mood was not exactly lifted by news that one of my friends had had a White-tailed Eagle flying over his house in northern Peterborough. And it was not one of the satellite-tracked introduced birds!

Lockdown Diary: Saturday 18.4.20

Today was a return to cold, rainy weather, with nasty north-easterly winds. However, good birds can come down in bad weather. And so it proved. The first ‘good’ bird of the day, at Ferry Meadows CP, was a Swift, which was my equal earliest ever in the Peterborough area. But this just passed over.
The second good bird was my earliest ever (by a day) local Black Tern, which came down in a shower, followed about 15 minute later by another, both immaculate breeding-plumaged individuals. Such great birds to watch and a very welcome treat in the cold!
Other ‘good birds’ of the morning included a Common Sand piper and a Green Sandpiper, both passage waders, here.

Lockdown Diary: Friday 17.4.20

Another day passes with no Redstarts or Ring Ouzels in my neck of the woods. They are surely around, but not within my zone of exercise, despite giving the whole Ferry Meadows CP area what (to me) seems a thorough working over, in the limited time before work.
In fact, I recorded no new species, fresh in, today; instead, this morning was a day for enjoying some of the singing spring migrants which have already dropped in. Lesser Whitethroats were the most prominent, with a few more rattling away with their dry songs in dense hedges. But probably the bird of the day was the same Grasshopper Warbler I heard yesterday in the distance. Today, I pinned down its location to a ‘green lane’ called Landy Green Way, where it was ‘reeling’ unseen from within the dense hedge.

Yellowhammer, Landy Green Way (the Grasshopper Warbler was singing just underneath!)

Grasshopper Warbler is a bird I never used to encounter until I moved to Peterborough 20 years ago. Around here, they are not difficult to hear (if not see), if you check certain sites each year.
What will this weekend bring? Redstart and Ring Ouzel, I hope!

Common Sandpiper, Gunwade Lake, Ferry Meadows

Lockdown Diary: Thursday 16.4.20

Spring is back! After a brief rest, yesterday, birds are arriving in numbers again, it seems. This lovely, clear morning I encountered four new birds for my Ferry Meadows CP year list: Common Sandpiper, Lesser Whitethroat (at least three singing birds), Grasshopper Warbler and Garden Warbler. Of this list, the Grasshopper Warbler is the scarcest in the park, being not quite annual. It was a heard only job, as the amazingly insect-like rattling ‘reel’ of the the Grasshopper Warbler usually takes place from a well hidden perch in the middle of a dense bramble, rose or the like.
The Garden Warbler (a singing bird) was a day earlier than any I have previously recorded locally (with my records going back to 2003). We do particularly well for these plain yet lovely birds, around Ferry Meadows and they seem to live alongside the abundant Blackcaps without too much conflict, although Blackcaps are supposed to dominate them in general.

Common Sandpiper, Gunwade Lake shore, Ferry Meadows CP

The Common Sandpiper was feeding along the same little beach on Gunwade Lake where the Little Ringed Plovers popped in a few days ago. It was taking advantage of the fact that the dog walkers had not arrived there yet, to chuck sticks in the water for their dogs to chase (and hence flush any wader for miles!) While I was trying to photograph it, a Green Sandpiper called and nearly landed. Presumably this same bird was later feeding on the scraped ditches of the area known as Heron Meadows, which were created a year or two ago and have been drawing a few good birds down to this nice, rough field.
If you are interested, my Ferry Meadows CP area year list has now risen to 105 species (and my Peterborough area list to 144).

Lockdown Diary: Wednesday 15.4.20

Don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful sunny day out there. There is a crispness in the air and a circular rainbow around the sun, because of the high hazy , very thin clouds. But the birding is static. It is like spring has come to an end! On my cycle through Ferry Meadows CP this morning I felt as if I was a farmer doing the rounds checking that all his livestock and crops were doing OK, everything in the right place. The Red Kite was still sitting on its nest, the Dunnocks were still lined up pretending to be Redstarts on one of my favourite fencelines for scanning for the latter. The Whitethroats, Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Willow Warblers were all singing from exactly the same spot as on previous days this week.
The grebes were still displaying and the Common Terns and Sand Martins still appear to be settling in nicely. Perhaps the most interesting birds of the day (from a ‘different’ point of view) were a couple of noisy, squawking Jays.
Most of our summer visitors have made an appearance, but I still anticipate that by the end of the month I will have heard/seen my first Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Reed Warbler, Cuckoo and Swift. Just not today!

Lockdown Diary: Tuesday 14.4.20

It was still cold in the country park this morning. Apart from the Arctic Terns moving on (as expected, with these strictly passage birds in these here parts), there was very little change since Monday. I did stumble across a small flock of Fieldfares in an area I don’t normally check. These winter thrushes will be heading north and east soon, but we often getting them hanging on through the middle and even later parts of April.
Sky Lark numbers are, if you pardon me saying it, sky high at the moment. They are singing their hearts out everywhere. There continue to be seemingly exceptional numbers of Green Woodpeckers and I am hearing plenty of drumming Great Spotted Woodpeckers, too.
Incidentally, yesterday’s Arctic Terns have pushed my Ferry Meadows CP 2020 list up to the 100 mark. This is, of course, a place I cycle through every day on the way to work (in normal working times), and where in the autumn a few friends and I would do a daily ‘vis mig’ (visible migration) watch in the autumn. Last year my total for the park was 127 bird species. This year, with earlier and more thorough exercise sessions, I am hoping to at least get into the 130s. I may not be able to do a full #My200BirdYear challenge, but at least I can have a go at a Ferry Meadows CP #My139BirdYear.

Lockdown Diary: Monday 13.4.20

Easter Bank Holiday Monday saw a dramatic change in the weather, We had the heating on at home, and we needed it. Outside, the north-easterly was perishing. At Ferry Meadows its main effect was forcing the hirundines (martins and Swallows) down to skimming over the water for newly hatched insects. These included my first House Martins of the year. A Green Sandpiper by one of the scraped ditches on Heron Meadows in the park was also a park year tick, as was a drop in Great Black-backed Gull.
More exciting though were the two Little Ringed Plovers which called briefly and dropped out of the cold wind onto the gravelly Gunwade beach for a rest for about three minutes, before heading north-west. This small beach has drawn in several interesting waders over the years, but as it is one of the main places where people swim their dogs, they very rarely stay for any length of time. The cold wind was keeping the dog-walkers at bay, today, so the LRPs at least had a short, disturbance-free window for a quick preen.

Arctic Terns, Gunwade Lake, Ferry Meadows CP
Finally, there was an arrival of up to five Arctic Terns, which danced over the water providing a wonderful ID lesson in side by side comparison with the up to seven Common Terns on Gunwade Lake. The passing through of the Arctic Terns at Ferry Meadows is one of the great highlights of the spring, here!

Lockdown Diary: Sunday 12.4.20

Easter Sunday was yet another, warm, sunny day. Things were very much as usual in the country park though a second pair of Common Terns had arrived. The only new bird which I managed to record for the year was a Sedge Warbler, singing from the reeds by a small ditch. This is spot on for the average arrival date for Sedge Warbler around here.
Has anyone else noticed quite how many Green Woodpeckers there are this year? I have been hearing them everywhere recently. The Blackcaps are also ubiquitous and seem to have modified their songs since arrival. They now seem a bit more fancy and varied in their singing, throwing in more pace changes and mimicry, presumably at a critical time for impressing females.

Lockdown Diary: Saturday 11.4.20

Another lovely, warm, sunny day at Ferry Meadows CP, and so strange to not see the whole park heaving with partying, playing friends and families, barbecues and ball games. Instead it was dog walkers, joggers, walkers and cyclists. And birds, lots of birds. For the first time there were two Common Terns, clearly a pair (one ringed and one unringed). The male would go off an catch a fish to impress his mate and do a bit of classic wings down, tail raised, head up display on its chosen marker buoy.
A park year tick for me was a Yellow Wagtail which briefly dropped in to the small, gravelly beach of Gunwade Lake, by the Lakeside café. Other highlights included a fly-over Siskin and some wonderful displaying Great Crested Grebes.

Great Crested Grebes, Gunwade Lake, Ferry Meadows CP

A night listening session in our garden was superb, once the neighbours had quietened down. Highlights were my third Water Rail over in the week or so, plus a Moorhen flying directly south-west over the garden (which I managed to record, and will post a sound file of when I work out how!).

Lockdown Diary: Friday 10.4.20

It being Good Friday (and so a holiday), I had a bit of a longer ride today. Highlights included my first good view of a singing Willow Warbler this spring. It was a lovely yellow-breasted individual, which could even fool the unwary into thinking it was a Wood Warbler, if it wren’t singing the sweet descending whistled song. I also came across the nest of a Red Kite pair, high up in a stand of poplars (in what is presumably an old crows’ nest). One bird was sitting, presumably on eggs, while its mate perched in another poplar nearby.
The best migrant, though was a neat male White Wagtail, picking for flies among the horse manure in a nice short-cropped paddock.

Male White Wagtail, Castor Mill upper horse paddock