With the news that London had its earliest Wheatear on record yesterday I set off along the path to Hope Point full of that eponymous quality. It was a glorious, but misty morning and the Skylarks were in full voice.
There were no migrants that I could find, just one of the small influx of Stonechats that arrived this week.
Nothing much on the sea either though I did have a fly by of two Shelducks. The dredger, I think it#s the Coral Millepora was off shore towards Kingsdown, this seems a favourite mooring site for this vessel.
Further out in the channel a tug was towing this strange object, any ideas?
In the garden there has been a definite increase in the number of Chaffinches and Greenfinches this week. Last year this was a prelude to a few Bramblings later in the month, so I'm hoping that they will stay a few days this year.
Greenfinches are beginning to sing and display, but I think it is a little early for them to be nesting, although I have seen a Blackbird acting rather furtively around one of the bushes they normally nest in.
Frogs are back in the ponds in some numbers, but so far no spawn. Last year there was a lot of spawn on the 14th Feb, but a late frost seemed to kill most of it off. I hope we have better luck this year.
4 comments:
Hi Tony, don't know what the tug is pulling but we often get them going past here, heading North towards the Irish Sea. Maybe a different sub-species as ours normally have three legs. I'd assumed they were something to do with oil/gas drilling platforms. I think they tow the bases for oil rigs out to sea upside down, then when they reach their destination they flip them over, though in practice I expect it's a bit more technical than that.
Cheers,
John
Thanks John, good to hear from you, have you got orchids out down there yet?
Tony - just a few doors down from you there is a pond rapidly filling with frogspawn!
the strange object is a floating nuclear reactor.
Tony, you could move there. Right up your street...
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