The Whitlingham Bird Report for 2023 is now available to download from the Bird Reports page or from here

WHITLINGHAM: Early hirundines

28th March 2016

The forecast gale-force winds and rain showers arrived on Sunday night and continued into Monday morning. By the afternoon they began to slacken off, so I headed down to Whitlingham for an hour. In recent years the period after a storm has typically been good for seeing hirundines, and so it proved here. I noticed a Swallow swooping and stalling above the waves whipped up on the Great Broad. Scanning further round I saw more birds, at least seven Swallows and five Sand Martins in total. This was my earliest patch Swallow (previous record 31st March 2010) and join earliest Sand Martin (with 28th March 2015). I briskly walked to the east end of the broad to scan Thorpe Broad for the Common Scoter, which wasn't visible, before heading home.


No comments:

Post a Comment