Whinchat at Maxey

It must be something to do with Wednesdays. Last week there were two of these superb little birds at my local patch of Maxey pits, but they were gone on Thursday morning. Today, another one of these birds was present, constantly distant and always on the move. I wonder if he will be there tomorrow?

Maxey is looking pretty good at the moment for a nice wader or three, the water levels seem to be under control and so there is a lot of mud exposed, just waiting for something to drop in. As well as the Whinchat, this morning there was a Grey Plover in almost full breeding plumage, a scarcity in these parts, although it was my third one of this year. Always a nice bird to see though, especially in their breeding finery.

Crap photo, great bird!

Hopefully, a sign of good things to come.

Wet Whinchat

Or also known as Whinchat Wednesday!

This Whinchat was present on a visit to Frampton Marsh at the weekend (more of which later) and was obviously suffering from the torrential downpour that had happened and was still happening when taking the photograph below.

But what a difference a bit of dry weather makes! The photos below are of the same bird, although it looks like a different species!

Another Chat

Well, the same one as my previous post actually, just a closer shot!

Just lately I have had a bit of luck at Maxey GP. I found this Whinchat on Wednesday and it was still present Thursday and Friday, then I found an Avocet, then today there was a Wood Sandpiper in the morning and then 3 Ruff dropped in. Unfortunately these birds were too far away for any kind of photo, although Mike Weedon managed to get a shot of a Wood Sand this afternoon when there were 2 of these birds present.

Whinchat

My PBC year list has been pretty stagnant just lately and after missing out on a Purple Heron, Osprey and Curlew a couple of weeks back I began to wonder if I would soon add another bird to the list! An early morning visit to my local patch at Maxey GP answered my question. On a new piece of fencing erected in the Spring was a lovely Whinchat. It kept dropping down to the ground and then returning to the same post or its neighbour, doing what Whinchats do. It was quite distant and jumpy so these shots are just record shots really of only the second known bird in the PBC area this year (the other was in the Spring and I missed out on that one too). This lovely bird brings my PBC year list limping to 161.

The Whinchat is a summer migrant to the U.K. arriving in April and May and is just seen on passage in our area. They breed on moorland edges, amongst bracken, in young forestry plantations with areas of short grass and where there are prominent perches to hunt from. They are also found in other rough grassland areas, including water meadows and upland farms.

They feed mainly on invertebrates, including mayflies, caddisflies, moths, beetles, spiders, small snails but will also eat some plant material, such as blackberries.

The numbers of Whinchat are slowly falling, in line with a lot of our other summer migrants. This could be due to the `tidying` up of the countryside and overgrazing at nesting sites, but also there may be problems at their winter grounds south of the Sahara, especially when a drought occurs.