March 2021 |
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30th. A warm day, sunny and still. Lots of butterflies flying including brimstone and holly blue. A great day above Avon Gorge. Some nice flypasts of the peregrine, and at the end of the day one perched underneath the viewpoint, tolerant of two climbers about 20m away. At last I struck lucky with a confiding perched peregrine. Amazing to see the 'neck opener', the tomial 'tooth' on the upper mandible.
29th. We are now allowed to travel 'locally'. Forest of Dean. First swallows (2) of the year near the Old Severn Bridge (English side). Hawfinch high up at Parkend, mandarins and marsh tit at Cannop Ponds, great grey shrike and stonechat at Crabtree Hill. We also photographed nuthatch and tits at Speech House car park, where 2 stock doves were also present.
28th. Back to Ashton Court - similar birds to yesterday, and we watched the fallow deer.
27th. Ashton Court. Tree creeper, nuthatches, marsh tit around the feeder, a pair of peregrines and a kestrel overhead. Chiffchaff singing. Nuthatch and blue tit below.
24th. There is an introduced population of wall lizards in the Avon Gorge. They look like Podarcis muralis maculiventris from northern Italy?
21st. Morning - 2 dippers, 2 kingfisher, 3 grey wagtails Snuff Mills.
Afternoon - 3 peregrines in Avon Gorge.
18th. A pair of Dippers on the Frome near Snuff Mills. Two kingfisher sightings and 3 grey wagtails too.
16th. Peregrines again. One caught a redwing.
9th. More peregrines. Three in the gorge.
8th. Daily exercise on the Downs. Mistle thrush, firecrest, stock dove and peregrines. The peregrines were mating again.
6th-7th. Sunny days in the Gorge. On 7th we saw a food pass between the peregrine pair, and the pair mated in a tree in the gorge.
5th. First attempts this year at photographing peregrines. Long-tailed tit in catkins too.
1st. More fun on the Downs. Treecreeper, firecrest, and magpie.
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