Migrants and nestlings

The swifts have been back now for around 10 days - first seen over the garden on the 24th April, but that seemed to be just a couple of advance guards: by last Saturday (May 1st) there were a lot more, dong the usual screaming as they flew around. How can you not love them? On Sunday we saw a female wheatear down by River Meadow: I'd never noticed wheatears here until last year - but apparently they can appear in almost any grassland when migrating.

I have also seen the first chicks of the year: ducklings on the local river (two, on Sunday) and a rather bigger group, that looked the same age, on Willen lake, as I passed today. More locally, in our garden I noticed a blackbird chick on Sunday and we have been busy ensuring the cats have bells on their collars again, though I have to say it is the dog that is the bigger menace. Thankfully for the birds, the cats are quite old and no longer hunt, but the dog is very interested in small creatures that wonder around in the garden. However as he is only out there with us, we can keep an eye on him. Other birds nesting in the garden include a pair of woodpigeons (photo to come...); dunnocks (no idea where the nest is though), and possibly a second pair of blackbirds and blue tits. I think there are some long tailed tits nesting very nearby in the shrubs just over the wall. The woodpigeons are bad news really. Whilst I'm happy that the garden is wildlife friendly they are the kind of wildlife we could do without. They will just be seeing the garden as their local larder or free supermarket. And it is partly thanks to pigeon activity that I stopped growing broccoli.....