The gorgeous Black Necked Grebe has been my favourite patch bird of the year so far, however the singing Wood Warbler on the morning of Friday 20/04 was a close second.
What was remarkable about it, was that I found it singing in exactly the same spot that I had found my only previous patch bird two years ago, almost to the day!! Surely the same bird, however studies suggests they are extremely nomadic...we'll never know! What we do know is that it is a very rare patch bird, made all the more sweeter as unlike last time Gareth, my fellow patcher and good mate, managed to get up to see it too! Luckily, on a rare day off work for him too!
It has generally been a poor spring for numbers of passage waders and so it was nice to at least find one decent wader, in the form of a smart Sanderling on Wednesday 02/05, appearing in the early morning wet and windy conditions.
Otherwise, the patch has produced fleeting views of a late-ish female Redstart on 30/04, a reeling Grasshopper Warbler - a new bird for me at Grimbo (found by Gareth) as well as all the usual warblers and a trickle of Common Sandpipers, Yellow Wagtails and the odd Wheatear.
Elsewhere locally, I haven't encountered too much of interest, although I was pleased to connect with two Arctic Terns at Boddington Reservoir on Saturday 28/04, on what was a very gloomy day. Out of all the regular migrants that arrive to our shores in spring, I'm always most eager to see some Arctics. Not only are they a beautiful bird, but I find it so humbling and mesmerising that these birds were flying round a patch of water close to where I live, however just months before, were somewhere off Antarctica. They are just incredible!
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