A pale substitute....pallid, one might say

A fair bit to report since our previous blog of last weekend including a highlight in the form of an osprey that drifted up the valley last Sunday, interrupting our breakfast in a scramble for bins and camera....number 80 on the garden list. With the trickle of blocked migrants now becoming a steady stream, this week has seen us catch up with swifts (Thurs 25th), wood warbler (Tues 23rd), common whitethroat (Fri 26th),

cuckoo (Sat 27th) and today, a lesser whitethroat that I inadvertantly flushed from the side of a track - and although not new for the year, we did have a female pied flycatcher in the garden on Friday. Another interesting garden regular this week have been a pair of yellowhammers, which have graced us with numerous visits to forage under the feeders. From our limited observations (work does get in the way!) through the kitchen window, mid afternoon seems to be the prime time for them, and first the male comes in, feeds, heads off, and then the female comes in and does likewise - never have they been observed coming in together.



(taken by Dave)

Another newby for the garden was this cheeky hedgehog, that seems to have cottoned onto the fact we are putting out food for the badgers and nicks in early to grab a few bits for himself (or herself) before the brock boys arrive.

We spent Thursday night down in Pembrokeshire, stopping at Manorbier and so spent some time walking along the stunning coast that this county has to offer. Not dissimilar to my old home patch of The Lizard in Cornwall, with craggy shoreline, crashing blue waves and big surf, it felt good to spend some time out and about. This is my way of putting a brave face on the fact we had booked to spend the night on Skomer Island, but they had rung the day before and cancelled due to the unfavourable conditions for landing the boat, meaning we missed out on our chance of close up photos of the seabirds, the nightly arrival of manxies, and to cap it all, the juv pallid harrier was still around and showed really well on the day we were supposed to be there. Ho-hum. Still, we did get some good views of the auks and fulmars at Stackpole Head to make up for it. Sort of.

                    

One consolation was breaking the journey at Teifi marshes, where we were treated to great views of singing cettis warblers (a tick for Steffi) amongst the numerous sedge warblers.