My first Swift of the year just powered north over my Chase Terrace garden

We've all seen holly berries in autumn how many have seen holly flowers in spring

2 grasshopper warblers reeling on Cuckoo Bank with a couple of dozen linnets, a dozen or so willow warblers chiffchaffs & blackcaps half a dozen whitethroats & skylarks + ravens buzzards greenfinches bullfinches chaffinches etc

A few from my walk round Chasewater heath and Slurry pool this afternoon

77,000 want him alive and worship him the other 8 billion want him dead

A few from Belvide today along with my first reed warbler, whitethroat & yellow wagtail of the year with ringed, little ringed plovers com sandpipers on the north shore with redshank on the chappel bund & a cracking sum plumaged BT godwit at the west end, 1000s of sand martins & a few house martins

Male stonechat on Chasewater heath this afternoon

Ring necked duck at Chasewater this afternoon

Osprey seen over Blithfield causeway 30 minutes later

Just had an Osprey north over the garden at 12.02 escorted out of Chasewater airspace by the lesser black backed gulls....
Next stop on the map is Blithfield?

Enjoyable morning at Middleton Lakes, all 3 woodpeckers (lesser spot yr tick) avocets redshank dunlin blackwits LR plovers & year ticks com sandpiper ringed plover bittern sedge warbler white wagtail along with shelducks gadwell teal pochards tufties and the dubious red breasted goose

Saw my Florida Scrub Jay's in NASA along with wild Manatee's few years back

3 summer plumage black guillimots, 2 guillimots a razorbill , 2 shags and a flyby great Northern diver with 2 distant flyby scoters off Llandudno pier during a 30 minute seawatch early afternoon

Some of the 50 or so turnstones roosting under the grand hotel over high tide at Llandudno

It's a bit of a beast

The chances of me seeing a Vareux's Eagle Owl in the wild are millions to one so as I was driving through Wolverhampton today I popped into the National Trust Whitwick Manor to see this, obviously an escape but what a beast

Pleasant if blustery (felt like gale force) morning at Belvide, Blackcap and Swallow my first of the year and connected with the Black Necked Grebe after missing the one on my doorstep at Chasewater earlier in the week.

As I've said before Debbie they are very intelligent birds how many other species could train a human to bring suet and eggs every morning 😂😂

Beautiful pastel sunset over Burntwood last night

Red kite over the garden this afternoon heading west over Chase Terrace/Burntwood

One for you @marburybirds.bsky.social

Walk from Prospect Village along the main track on Cuckoo Bank back home, about 2 dozen skylarks & linnets 4 m pipits 4 lapwing 2 buzzards & ravens sparrowhawk 3 Canada geese 3 mallards 10 roe deer and a fox plus the commoner stuff with 4 bullfinches along the abandoned road

My 1st Sand Martins of the year over the dam at Chasewater res this morning and half a dozen wigeon and 5 redhead goosanders still on the Swag

Not seen my local ravens for over a week so assume they're nesting then 4 in the air together this morning having a right old argy bargy with lots of swooping, barrel rolls and a variety of calls until 1 pair departed over the village - great to watch

Also at Whitemore Haye this morning only saw 1 Slavonian Grebe Shelducks Goldeneye Oystercatchers Shovelers Gadwell Wigeon GW Egret 2 Chiffchaffs

Merlin at Whitemore Haye this morning

Difficult to see exactly what's going on as you can only see the nest as you're driving down the A460 Cannock bypass duel carriageway at 50mph, I've seen them taking sticks etc to the nest and one of them was on the side of it this lunchtime. There's no access to the site as it's a container yard

Half a mile from Cannock town centre there's a huge container base with a huge electricity pylon in the middle and a pair of raven's nesting on the middle arm for the 3rd year running

A few "seagulls" harassing me on Weston super mare seafront yesterday in the blustery wind