Local patch

Kestrel, Barton Clough

First "exercise walk" and shopping trip for over a week (I feel a fraud for having gone into lockdown for hayfever!)  What I hadn't counted on was just how stressed-out I'd become leaving the house: it was a good ten minutes into the walk before I stopped feeling anxious about going out (helped a lot by the first two swallows of the year flying overhead). If I hadn't had the walk first I'd be back at home shaking. A nice walk and everyone — including me — being perfectly sensible and friendly.

It was mid-afternoon so fairly quiet birdwise. A pair of robins fussed around the base of one of the poplars and a great tit called further down the avenue. There were a few woodpigeons about and half the usual contingent of magpies. I didn't see any blackbirds until I got to the end of the path.

Carrying on it looked at first as if it was going to be just as quiet in the old cornfield. It took a while but in the end I found three chiffchaffs, though only one singing, and three singing blackcaps. A buzzard very quietly floated into the copse by the school. Birds flying over head included a kestrel, a couple of lesser black-backs and the third swallow of the day.

On the way home back through the park the kestrel was calling from one of the sycamores and a chaffinch was singing from the bowling green pavilion.