Six members attended this meet on a gorgeous sunny day marred a little by a rather strong wind.  The target species was the Nightingale but when we arrived at ‘Nightingale Corner’ it was to find that the bird had just departed.  Ten minutes later there was still no sign and with the majority of the party never having seen one before and expectations being high, the trip leader wondered if his best course of action was to sneak off unseen and thus avoid a potential lynching party.
Hoping to find Nightingales further on, we set off round Coot Lake and fortunately were soon distracted by hearing and then getting fleeting glimpses of Lesser Whitethroats.  Added to this were good sightings of Blackcaps and Garden Warblers as well as a fabulous surround sound serenade from these warblers.
Having done a full circuit of the lake, half the group decided to take a walk round the northerly half of the reserve while the other half returned to the favourite Nightingale spotting place, determined to see the bird.  The walkers eventually returned pleased as punch with their sighting, albeit brief, of a Hobby.  However, their triumphalism proved to be short-lived as the others, with ear to ear grins, had both seen and heard a Nightingale.

Green-veined White

Green-veined White

After lunch the Nightingaless group went back hoping to see the elusive bird and this time were quickly rewarded with a 10 minute serenade from this little brown job as well as the opportunity to see it between the tangle of branches.

After this success, we decided to drop into RSPB Langford Lowfields reserve on our way back.  The highlight here was, without doubt, being able to sit on a bench beside the reed bed, in sunshine, watching up to four Hobbies hawking for dragonflies. And finally, the icing on the birding cake was our sighting of a Whimbrel on one of the islands.
A great day on two excellent reserves with 55 species of bird identified.

Three members had arrived in the Old Moor car park by the appointed time of 9:30am and, under the direction of Jeff Davies, duly set off with a target of finding sixty species. The sun shone warmly all day, but with a cold edge to a freshening wind we were glad of the promise of many hides to visit. Alas, these turned out to be colder than being out in the open!

Blackbird, Black-headed Gull, Black-tailed Godwit, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Collared Dove, Common Buzzard, Common Kestrel, Common Snipe, Coot, Cormorant, Dunnock, Gadwall, Goldfinch, Great Crested Grebe, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Greylag Goose, Herring Gull, Jackdaw, Lapwing, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Linnet, Little Grebe, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pochard, Reed Bunting, Robin, Sand Martin, Shelduck, Shoveller, Starling, Stock Dove, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Tufted Duck, Wigeon, Willow Warbler, Woodpigeon, Wren, and Yellowhammer came to 53 species.

The target was therefore easily surpassed by the addition of Speckled Wood, Orange-tip and Peacock butterflies, a large maurauding Carp, a docile Terrapin and several species of plant in bloom (Cowslip, Coltsfoot, Gorse, Broom…)

Ten members assembled beside the extremely noisy A616 at 08:30 then quickly moved onto the relative peace of the Common.  There was very little wind and though the sky was cloudy, it was reasonably warm.  However, very little could be seen or heard in the way of avian fauna although sharp eared Dag picked up the call of a Woodlark but from the opposite direction to that which we were walking.  Pete Faulkner also possesses keen ears and his insistence that he could hear a Yellow Hammer was finally rewarded with a positive sighting.

Yellow Hammer couple

Five Jays in the nearby copse gave some entertainment before we were drawn onwards by the odd, faint call of a Woodlark.  We paused in the middle of the Common just west of the cattle grid for a serious attempt to see our target species.  Eventually we managed to locate one perched at some distance on the top of a tree.  Now I don’t know whether Woodlarks are slugabeds or whether they take time over their breakfast before getting down to courting but all of a sudden, we were surrounded by calls and Woodlarks demonstrating their impressive song flight.

Joyce strikes gold with Woodlark close-up

On the subsequent meander around the Common, we also had sightings of a pair of perched Kestrels, two Common Buzzards and a Peregrine which flashed across the horizon.

Ogstonians

Just before lunchtime, we headed north to the Welbeck Raptor Watchpoint where almost immediately Dougie latched onto a Goshawk which everyone was able to catch a sighting of.  This was the first of three occasions when Goshawks showed themselves.  The other notable sighting was of 14 Buzzards in the air at once.

A thoroughly excellent trip, 43 species seen all told with both target species in the ‘bag’ and for icing on the cake, we ended up in the pub at Cuckney!