Since the middle of last week, swallows
have gradually been arriving back to their likely breeding sites around
Landshipping. It’s always great to see these
harbingers of spring and hopefully many more will be returning to the area during
the next few weeks. Today we watched a pair hunting insects close to one
of the farms near Coedcanlas. There seemed to be plenty of small insects to be
caught in the still, warm air.
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| Moving in on an insect with great agility |
It was another good day soaring birds. A resident sparrowhawk, on the look out for linnet flocks perhaps, was not particularly welcomed by the lesser black-backed gulls. A flock of
at least 500+ LBB's were also spending much time in the air and resting on the estuary.
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| Soaring around above Landshipping Quay, just before dashing off to hunt passerines along some nearby hedgerows |
Redshank numbers at Landshipping this afternoon were down to just a few birds and we could only see about a dozen teal in the area. A couple of greenshanks were in the lower part of the Eastern Cleddau but, apart from these and various pairs of shelducks, it was generally quiet on the
estuary.
A couple of days ago we noted another recently arrived garden warbler near
Martletwy and a few more willow warblers were also back in wooded areas, but there have been few other obviously new migrants
in the area during the last few days.