May 29th

It was a cooler morning than of late and a pink flushed dawn soon turned into a grey day during which the fields and gardens were treated to a much needed gentle rain. Ossie and I walked the lane early on, hearing a distant Cuckoo calling from across the fields. About half way to the paddocks, where the hedgerow becomes quite mature and more interesting, a snatch of song stopped me in my tracks. It sounded like a Reed Warbler, but any late Spring 'Reed' singing from a coastal hedgerow is always worth double checking for the rare Marsh Warbler. It remained silent for a while and I played an mp3 recording of a Marsh Warbler from my mobile phone hoping to elicit a response. None was forthcoming though. A few more minutes passed and the singing started again, this time for a bit longer, still sounding like the commoner species and without any of the extravagent mimicry usually associated with Marsh Warblers. The habitat was 'wrong', but this bird was undoubtedly a pausing migrant heading for a reed-bed somewhere, for it eventually showed and I could see it was a typical Reed Warbler, a tricky species to record within the parish so I was more than pleased to add it to the year's tally.

On the return leg a flyover Heron was just a Grey (as they always are!) and later, from the garden, an increasingly loud 'cuckoo... cuckoo...' was given by one of two birds that eventually appeared as they flew overhead towards the northwest.