Chiltern Birder

An interesting few days. On Thursday I paid a visit to a small music club on board a barge on the Grand Union near Uxbridge. It was rather nice to have a swan drift past the window, not something you that happens in the typical pub back room. There was also a heron on top on a nearby boat and my first tern of the season was circling the area for a while. Today I had to make a visit to Essex. There was a pair of red kites over Ley Hill Common which was unusual, I see singletons around there regularly but not normally more than one. Driving along the former M10 I saw a buzzard and going through Epping Forest a brief glimpse of something large. I would love to definitely have it down as another buzzard but I can't be 100% sure. A pity as I have never seen one in Essex before. At the RHS garden at Hyde Hall I heard a cuckoo while loading the car up. Another customer also commented that it was the first that she had heard this year.

I saw my first swallows of the summer yesterday, a pair perched on a phone line near Chipping Onger in Essex. Considering how cold it is at the moment the old saying came straight to mind. Last weekend there was a huge number of swifts over the Walthamstow reservoirs but driving through the area again today there were none. I did glimpse tufties and pochard on the water. I haven't heard a cuckoo yet which is suprising, at home green woodpeckers have been very audible but unseen.

It was nice to see a pair of red legged partridges in the road on Sunday. Naturally they ran away rather than take to the air. At home I have been trying to see if a robin is nesting in the front hedge. On Sunday one kept moving around different parts of the garden with a beak full of worms. I stepped indoors for a minute and when I returned he was back in the quince tree with an empty beak. There was no sign of great tit activity over the weekend so I am not sure of the status of the next in the bat box.