Sunday 4th May

Overcast but very warm fro my visit this morning. I only had an hour and a half so it was a quick trot around between 5.50 and 7.20am.

I may try and get around again later principally for butterflies. Yesterday around Birling i had several Orange Tip, a few Speckled Wood and a Holly Blue.

Here this morning I counted 16 Nightingale, 25 Whitethroat, 11 Reed Warbler, 3 Sedge Warbler, 3 Cuckoo, 6 Blackcap, 1 Lesser Whitethroat, 7 Willow Warbler, 7 Chiffchaff, 6 Cettis, 4 Song Thrush, 1 Green Woodpecker, 1 Reed Bunting, 2 Bullfinch and 2 Shelduck on the Medway. It was interesting this morning to watch a pair of Whitethroat chase each other in a figure of eight around some bushes, they must have completed the circuit 50 times!

4 Water Vole were feeding by the divers car park bridge as usual. I can never resist photographing them. In the east scrub I had 3 Slow Worm including a juvenille.

More Water Vole pictures!!