The English Countryside

 Nothing beats the views you get in Spring while walking around in the good old English countryisde. The sight of blue sky, green trees and grass with tiny white (and black) lambs playing cards (gamboling!) and all manner of wildlife in and amongst.

Mon 29 April

Green-veined White butterfly

Walking towards home along the Mere south side I saw an egret coming in to land.

Little Egret landing

I got a little giddy as this was the first Little Egret I'd seen at the Mere all year. While I was taking pics of said egret I didn't notice that a Great White Egret had landed just a few yards to its right! When I glanced up from the camera I soon got my eye back to the viewfinder 🤣🤣

Little Egret and Great White Egret on the south side

I took lots of pics but they are all pretty similar. Nothing much happened apart from the GWE departing in the same manner as it arrived - unseen by me as I had the camera glued to my eyes again. At least I saw the LE take off and fly south west.

Little Egret

Tue 30 April

I had two walks along the south side, one in the morning as usual and one in the afternoon as my car was ready to pick up from the garage.

Female Bullfinch

Barn Owl twixt first and second field

Common Footman caterpillar

Green-veined White on Forget-Me-Not

Male Orange Tip on Forget-Me-Not

Handsome bird, the Jackdaw

As I arrived home at lunch time I had an unpleasant sight of a dead Whitethroat in one of our wall planters. I'm guessing it had flown into the kitchen window as the planter is just below it.

Late Whitethroat

Lesser Whitethroat

We seem to have more Lesser Whitethroats at the Mere this year than we have had before? We've only had last year and this year to date of adding records to BirdTrack for the Mere so it's difficult to quantify.

Singing Sedge Warbler in Heslop's

Wed 1 May

The car wasn't right so I took it back to the garage early on and walked into town then on to the sea front. The couple of Purple Sandpipers that have been around there were still feeding along the steps, even though the tide was in.

This pic and three below - Purple Sandpipers

I walked back to KP and got a reasonable view of a singing Sedge Warbler, much better than yesterday's.

Sedge Warbler

I also had my best total of Common Sandpipers - eight of them. Two were hanging around the jetties and six flew out of Bull Hole towards Swan Island.

Common Sandpipers on KP 

Four of the six Common Sands flying west

Thu 2 May

Another walk to pick up the car and another unpleasant experience - a dead Blackcap this time. In the middle of the path with not a mark on it?!

Blackcap

Much better sights were to follow though with colourful butterflies to lighten the mood.

Peacock

Red Admiral

Long-tailed Tits are busy feeding their young or sitting on eggs at the moment so I don't see many. A couple appeared this morning though, feeding in an alder on the south side, looking worn and knackered 😉

Worn Long-tailed Tit