Recently the barn owl has been busy flying in daylight, although early morning and evening (7 AM or 8 PM), presumably to catch food to feed chicks. Also seen a little owl on the telephone wires near Brickbarns. Buzzards have been seen daily, and the number of kites seen at one time has increased to four on one occasion. We still have the grey heron and little egret visiting the local lakes and riverside. Swallows were busy in the hot weather over set-a-side meadows, but also included a number of swifts joining in capturing the plentiful insects. The usual birds with numbers of skylarks and they may be increasing, but no plovers in late Spring although some seen in the Nature Park earlier on in the year. I have started using a bird call app on my phone (thanks to Sarah and Emma for telling me about it), which identifies British bird calls. The app -Merlin- is from the University of Cornell and is free to download. It recognises and records bird calls and gives you data about the bird, it seems to be accurate although may occasional suggest some unlikely bird. Using it has demonstrated that there are lots of Chiffchaffs, Whitethroats and Blackcaps around but are difficult to see as usually hide in the undergrowth.
If you spot anything unusual please let us know via chignalnestbox@aol.com, Jon Lewis
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