High stuff

It seems only appropriate that pretty much all of the birds I've seen today (4/20 if you're an American) were ridiculously high. Having only just returned from a week on holiday in Germany (more of that later) I spent the day in the back garden trying to get on with some revision/napping/skywatching. Turned out pretty well with a Swift, 2 Common Buzzards, waking up from a snooze to a Kestrel hunting over nearby gardens briefly, a Sparrowhawk, and a Falcon Sp.

The first good bird of the day came as I was tucking into my delicious salad and ketchup-based lunch, picked up as an unusual speck in the sky for not being in the shape of a novelty balloon.

SHIT! RAPTOR!

Queue salad splutterings.  

High...

Above this Common Buzzard there was also a single Falcon Sp. so ridiculously high that it was only visible as a speck with binoculars. A Buzzard accompanied by a Peregrine an hour later at Wormwood Scrubs may well explain this mystery speck.

After an attempt at a Chemistry past paper that very quickly became a much more successful attempt at a siesta I woke up to the silhouette of a Kestrel over nearby gardens and then a distant Sparrowhawk heading South. But the real highlight for me came late in the afternoon with my first Swift of the year flicking it's way East at some height, the earliest I've ever seen in London and a reminder of what absolutely gorgeous birds they are. Roll on Summer.

I did say it was distant.

31st March, a glorious day on patch.

Common Kestrel hunting over Duke's Meadows, you absolute beauty.

Walked down the river in some of the winter dream type early evening sunshine to Duke's Meadows and then Chiswick House. Three Great Black-backed gulls gave a good show, one of the two enormous adults helping one of the 4 Lesser Black-backs present mob a Heron heading upriver.

Something out of a horror movie. They will rip your eyes out and then slowly devour your soul.

As well as the Grey Heron being mobbed upriver there was one more wisely sticking put on the Eyot itself along with a Great Spotted Woodpecker and not much else. Haven't heard any Reed Buntings here for a while so I wonder if there are any around?

Gunning through WNW over Duke's meadows 2 Sand Martins were a little too fast for my lens and were a pleasant reminder of spring along with the 2 Chiffchaffs and a Blackcap in full song. The Kestrel hunting overhead also gave a nice opportunity for photography, with the shot above turning out by far the best of the bunch. Still very new to photography I'm finding it amazing how with similar settings dialled in how different the background can make the subject bird look.

 Why does it always rain on me...

Is it because I lied when I was 17?

Two Stock Doves seem to have taken a liking to foraging on the foreshore and are pretty regular on the stretch between Chiswick Pier and Duke's Meadows now. Chiswick House grounds yielded loads (7) of Goldcrests with 5 singers and 2 Coal Tits along with 2 very noisily drumming Great Spotted Woodpeckers and a yaffling Green Woodpecker. All the 'usuals' were present and accounted for with 2 Song Thrushes singing and a lone Mistle Thrush trying it's hardest to look like an enormous Wheatear on the ground.

On the way back down the river were these gorgeous little Egyptian Goose goslings. Sadly anybody playing spot the difference with them from yesterday would have noticed that five have become four, and with the male only occasionally to be seen anywhere near them (Broken Britain etc...) I wouldn't be surprised if four become three. Let's hope not for the moment though.

Sexy Chicks.