A lovely spring-like morning in
the Martletwy/Landshipping area, with lots of birdsong from the local resident
species. A chiffchaff in full song for several minutes in one of the hedgerows
near our garden was a bit of a surprise though; an overwintering male or an
early arriving spring migrant?
We watched the Withybush pied wagtail roost this
evening and reckoned there were at least 480 at the roost. Counting them in was
more difficult this evening due to the presence of a merlin (young male) that flew
over the roost from the north. It flushed out about 150 of the wagtails that
had just started to settle, but they all returned several minutes later. A
little while earlier one of the resident carrion crows chased some of the wagtails
out from pre-roost locations. The behaviour of the crepuscular merlin, was not unlike that of hobbies we have previously seen chasing
bats leaving their summer roosts (e.g., at Stackpole).