Saturday 28 March 2009

28th March 2009

I finally managed to see hirundines at the lakes this morning, with 2 Swallows seen very briefly over Engine Pool at c. 9:20 am. Other good sightings were 3 Jays and the 3 Greylag Geese at Terry's Pool, and 1 Siskin around Windmill Pool. 5 Cormorants, 5 Herring Gulls, 4 Lesser Black-backed Gulls (including a ringed bird that I was just about able to note down details for) and just 4 Tufted Ducks were also seen. Spent some time birding along lanes south and east of the lakes, and saw 1 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 2 Common Pheasants (1 heard only), 4 Collared Doves, 55 Starlings, 28+ Fieldfares, 20+ Redwings, 10+ Goldfinches and another Jay. Just 15 Stock Doves were counted in the field surrounding the Hungry Horse.
I now have arrival dates for Chiffchaff and Swallow at Earlswood for this year, but if anyone has earlier dates for these species or sees any martins, terns, etc before I do I'd be most grateful if you could send them to me for this blog and my records. I'm still interested in other Earlswood records too though.
M.P. Griffiths

2 comments:

Reg Telescope said...

I saw willow warbler at the lakes on 13 April last year. I wonder if we can beat this?

Matt Griffiths said...

We can certainly try :)
Seems that someone recorded one at the lakes on the 3rd April last year! Maybe we can beat that one too though?