Summer Visitors during Lockdown

As my camera is currently not aloud out due to the lockdown, I've had to go back to some pictures that I took at a similar time last year. These are of two birds that will almost inevitably serve as a reminder of this terrible COVID-19 lockdown in years to come.

In a year when I was striving so hard to tick off 200 birds, I'd made a fantastic start. Now I'm left wondering if I'll be lucky enough to see our Summer migrants. I understand the importance of the lockdown and I am observing it, it just affects people in different ways.

Anyway, I do enjoy my time outside when I go out and I'm always listening and watching. The sound of the Chiffchaff is a great start to Spring, and I'm hearing more and more of them on my walks.  A great little bird, very similar to the Willow Warbler, which I am hoping that I'll be able to hear or see very soon.

The Chiffchaff

Now, these were a really nice surprise to find last Sunday. Sand Martins!!! I've been waiting for them to arrive, along with the Swallows, and I found 8 of them flying over my local river Bollin where they nest in the river banks. Maybe all is not lost after all. This took my year list to 142.😃

Sand Martin - Wilmslow Park

I finally got round to doing something that I had planned on doing a long time ago, photographing the Sand Martin colony at Wilmslow Park. Just a short walk from home, these great little hirundines  make the sandy banks of the River Bollin there home each year. Not the easiest bird to photograph in flight, I wanted to focus on the nest holes and hopefully get a something better than a blur. I still managed lots of blurs, but also managed to get some of them whilst almost still.

The smallest of the hirundines feeds mainly over water, quite often chirping as it goes.