Sunday Morning - WHIMBRELS, WOOD WARBLER and more

Just managed to beat David Bilcock to the Wilstone car park this morning at about 6am. We both got to the top of the bank and David exclaimed that there were two WHIMBREL on a barley bale. I looked up, not knowing which barley bale, and scanned to see four WHIMBREL – two adjacent bales had two on each! I found this quite amusing as it was slightly over a week ago when David said it would be nice to see a Whimbrel perched rather than just flying over. So far David and I have seen six perched Whimbrel – on the bank, the bales and the rocks along Drayton Bank.

Shortly after this David spotted two adult LITTLE GULLS flying among the Common Terns – these are different birds from the ones I saw yesterday in the late morning/early afternoon visit.

A few calls and texts were sent and Steve joined us and spotted two BLACK TERNS that had just arrived. Another person I spoke to later mentioned that he had seen two at Marsworth and since David couldn’t find those later it is likely that the same bird were involved.

Anyway the LITTLE GULLS gained altitude and departed to the east and at 6:40 the four WHIMBREL circled to gain height, calling as they did, and also departed but in a north-easterly direction (Roy Hargreaves).

Later during the morning, Stuart Wilson located a singing male WOOD WARBLER in his Drayton Beauchamp garden and this bird then moved to the paddocks behind the village and later the 'Private Garden'. It ceased singing about an hour after it was discovered and remained silent until late evening, when it took advantage of the warm evening sunshine and sang several times.