NESTS

Here are some of the nests that my good friend Stephen Carter has found recently.

wood warbler

pied flycatcher

pied flycatcher

jay

goshawk

redstart

reed bunting

meadow pipit

Well done Stephen, it's been an exceptional year for pied flycatcher this year with 24 breeding pairs already found, the BTO will be very pleased.

NEST BOXES

Last Tuesday Steve Carter and yours truly went and checked our nest box colony and had a general scout about. We had both Great and Blue Tits in quite a few boxes but also had two Nuthatches with one bird sitting, we also had two different pairs of Redstart both still at the building stage. Our resident pair of Tawny Owls are in a box in the woods and had three healthy chicks.
We saw both Stonechat and Willow Warbler with nesting material and found a Meadow Pipit nest and also what Steve thinks might be a Reed Bunting half built.

Here's some pic's of the nests we found.

meadow pipit

redstart building

great tit (or is it blue)

Here's a video of Steve climbing the Tawny Owl.

And here's the chicks.

tawny owl chicks

Before my last post of the Cuckoo this one landed on our satellite dish.

Great couple of hours out and nice to see things moving along nicely.

AT LAST

After years of trying I finally managed to get a couple of decent images of a Cuckoo.
This is a male and it stayed on this post for at least five minutes, I must have taken roughly a hundred photo's, to say I was pleased is an understatement.

This was a case of a bit of luck and being in the right place at the right time.

A TASTE OF SPRING

Spring migrants and our resident birds were everywhere over the weekend at the farm some carrying nesting material some frantically feeding up some feeding chicks and some singing and calling. With the weather being so absolutely beautiful it was a real taste of Spring and a real feeling of pleasure to be out and about.

I had a great day's birding where the list of migrants were :- 
Willow Warbler, Wheatear, Redstart, Tree Pipit and both male and female Cuckoo.

BLACK NOT RED

black redstart

female common redstart

This time of year us birders eagerly await the arrival of our Spring migrants.
So when I got home from work on Monday last week I thought that I had spotted my first Redstart of the spring, bright red tail drab in appearance yes I thought a female. I grabbed my camera and took a few snaps then put my pic's on a Facebook site called Gwent Birders, it's a local site for people that are interested in Birds and wildlife where they can post pictures and share information. Within 10 minutes of posting the picture I was inundated with comments saying that it was in fact a Black Redstart a first summer male and a passage migrant. I quickly grabbed my Helm ID guide which confirmed that my fellow birders were right. It stayed for a couple more days before moving on but what a pleasant surprise the first I've seen up here and goes to show don't presume that what your looking at is what you think it is. I think I need to brush up on my ID skills.

Some more pic's of this surprising little passage migrant

My regular spring visitors the common Redstarts should be turning up anytime soon lets hope that they are as obliging as this little chap was.