Cholsey Wildlife: Lapwing success & Butterflies

Tuesday, 8 July 2014

Lapwing success & Butterflies

Cloudy, 20º, light NW..............thundery, heavy rain showers late afternoon.

A walk out to Lollingdon today and luckily got back just before a thunderstorm struck and it continued raining until around 19:30.

A single adult Black-headed Gull on the playing field.

The Lapwing pair in Lollingdon have fledged 3 young........a great success and the adults are still quite aggressive towards intruders on their territory. I think these were the only successful breeding Lapwing in Cholsey this year!

Quite a few young Common Whitethroat around today with several family groups of between 4 to 7 birds.

The hill had the usual Corn Buntings (5), Yellowhammers (6), Yellow Wagtail (5), Chiffchaffs (3), Common Whitethroats (5), Blackcaps (3) and Linnets (12).

A couple of Swift flocks over the hill, one of c30 birds flew directly over south and another flock of around 10 feeding for a time and drifted off north.

Also a few Swallow flocks, one of 20+ birds had 2 Sand Martin with them and they flew SW and another flock of slightly less flew over and headed south.

20 Lesser Blackback Gulls flew south and 5 Black-headed Gulls flew high NW.

On the way back a covey of Grey Partridge exploded before me, I counted around 20 birds (mostly young) before they dropped out of site. One of the adults flew to about 6 metres from me and proceeded to do the “broken wing” distraction display, squawking and running in a tight circle with the left wing drooping to the ground. This lasted for around 20 seconds before it then flew off to join the others.

A couple of Kestrel, a Mistle Thrush, 2 Song Thrush, Great-spotted Woodpecker and a Grey Heron all noted and 11 Magpie on the playing field as I returned.

The garden became rather busy during the rain: a ♀ Mallard, 3 Moorhen, 2 Magpie and a supporting cast of 14 other species.

Lots of butterflies today; Meadow Brown and Ringlet most numerous, also Small Tortoiseshell, Large White, Small White, 1 Marbled White, several Gatekeeper, Large Skipper, Small Skipper, 2 Red Admiral, 1 Speckled Wood, 1 Comma and the only dragonfly was a Blue Emperor.