Spent an hour or so round the patch early evening today. Nothing out of the ordinary, but still an enjoyable time. Lovely to hear and spy a Kingfisher zooming through, at least one survived the winter. It is so great to hear the summer warblers competing away from nearly every piece of vegetation, although still no sound of grasshopper Warbler - shame, considering it's supposed to be a good year for them. A pair of Egyptian Geese circled the lake and landed out of view, not always seen, although reasonably common in the Valley. Varying sizes of Greylag goslings were present, but no Canadian ones. Strangely, Collared Doves rarely venture down from the 'safety' of the village, although a pair was seen, but there was no sign of the purring Turtle Dove of last week, hopefully not just passing through. I was anticipating the first cloud cover for weeks might bring down a turn or something, but other than a few Swift (in the area since 28th April), only four Common Tern were present, this number down on previous visits. A couple of imaginative (or hallucinatory) moments made me wonder about a strange song (which was presumably a mimicking Song Thrush - why do I always think I hear Nightingales?!?) and a 'grey-backed falcon' that momentarily came into view (where there was only a male Kestrel a minute later!)

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