A walk down to Felbrigg Lake this morning produced the annually returning Spotted Flycatcher in the trees along the western side of the lake, which brought the patch year list up to the 150 mark. On the lake itself the Little Grebe was still present along with the resident Whooper and Mute Swans, although the latter have now dwindled down from the high twenties to just four. Also a Greylag Goose perched at the top of a dead tree was a rather bizarre sight.
A duck which was mostly hidden amongst the vegetation on the water meadow got me excited for a brief second or two before it revealed itself as an escaped Ringed Teal, the second one on the patch in three years following one on the reservoir in 2010.
Due to the wet and windy conditions no butterflies or damselflies were noted today, but a few more teneral Common Blue Damsels and my first Speckled Wood of the year were noted over the weekend.
A duck which was mostly hidden amongst the vegetation on the water meadow got me excited for a brief second or two before it revealed itself as an escaped Ringed Teal, the second one on the patch in three years following one on the reservoir in 2010.
Due to the wet and windy conditions no butterflies or damselflies were noted today, but a few more teneral Common Blue Damsels and my first Speckled Wood of the year were noted over the weekend.
With the fairly stiff northerly breeze, a couple of sessions of seawatching were undertaken this afternoon which produced a nice selection of birds including two Arctic Skuas, which were my first spring record of the species for the patch, 10 Manx Shearwaters and a fairly decent passage of Little Terns. Other birds noted included Gannets, Kittiwakes, Fulmars, Sandwich Terns and Guillemots.
