April 2026

Kicking off another month with some typical April coolness and in the first few days at least a dearth of new arrivals but a few additions to the patch photo challenge.

But first off the Orange Moon just before it disappeared behind the clouds April 1st

From a quite sunny day in the forest a 2cy Common Buzzard

One of the 2cty female Goshawks with a bird

Adult Goshawk but no sun

Great Spotted Woodpecker on a gnarled old pine remnant

Cropped and zoomed in it looses the character of the tree somewaht

Two males ended up having a dispute on the same tree

Located a colony of c100 male Sandpit Mining Bees and attempted some action shots -

I only had the 200-800 lens with me so I kept having to zoom out to get close enough focus as the close focus is considerably further away at the 800 end

a gang of males

female peeping out of her nest burrow

Back to the patch photo challenge and these 22 Whooper Swans were number 88 for the year

A dead lamb produced a nice year tick and also number 89 on the photo list with this Raven dropping in only to be chased off by a gang of Carrion Crows

My patch year list has rumbled on to 112 but concentrating on Waters’ Edge I have had 90 species there so far and need to work pout how many I have actually photographed on that site - Dunnock was probably a new one

Song Thrush carrying nest material on Waters Edge - up to eight males were singing in March but there seems to be less now

Saturday 4th looked like another of those spring days - after a 7 mile hike around the pits the only reward was a single female Common Scoter and no new mu=igrants then this adult Little Gull flew in off the Humber and started feeding on sailing pit - 112 on the patch year list and 90 on the patch photo year list

a couple of boomers this afternoon this the louder of the two