Across the Border

This past Saturday we had some time at the end of the day to head into Notts, so we did the Carburton - Budby Common double bill. Buzzards entertained from the pull-in at Great Lake and a small flock of Mandarins clattered around the trees. Give it a month or so for Honey Buzzards and perhaps last summer's Osprey will return too.
The Nuthatch vid comes from Carburton.

To Budby before sunset, again a little early in the season for the best action there, Tree Pipits with that go-bezerk trill at the end of their song were the big feature, Linnet and Yellowhammer among them. Late May to early June we'll definitely return for the Cuckoos, Woodcock and Nightjars, Woodlark ought to be singing too.

Lathkill Dale

What unseasonal warmth! Did we sleep away the winter so quickly?

Well, I can tell you, it remains chilly of a morning down in the Derbyshire Dales. With my free weekends rapidly running out, the girlfriend and I chose a walk new to us, up and back down Lathkill Dale in the heart of the Peak. For a Sunday it was hardly busy, so the scarcity of birds was somewhere toward surprising. Two pairs of Dipper were skittish dazzlers, and the odd languid Buzzard sailed over late morning, beyond that Great Tits, Robins, Goldcrest and Song Thrush added birdsong to the atmospheric mists. Something about the acoustics up there, the slightest twitter is so rich!
Grey Wagtail were a notable absence, I suppose still huddling for warmth down on the broader reaches of the river where the sunshine can find them.


And now for something completely different... walking my niece to the park yesterday I observed behaviour from a pair of Carrion Crows quite new to me. One of the birds was eagerly pecking under the guttering of a house along the street, making me half-wonder whether it was searching for the eggs of early nesting sparrows. No, that wasn't it. Peck, peck, the crow grabbed and pulled out an enormous cob sandwich! Almost immediately thereafter in came the second bird, chasing away what was evidently an intruder raiding the food stash of the resident pair. It must have been watching them store the items there.
Of course I never have my camera when I really need it.

Back up Lathkill Dale, along the ridge above the valley, my first butterfly of the year, a stately Peacock for the Peaks.