Christine's walking & birds blog

A pleasant walk along Rosehall's forest tracks brought very few birds, although we did hear a male cuckoo and a chiffchaff singing. I've now heard chiffchaffs singing in three different locations this spring and not managed to lay eyes on one of them. The best sighting was of a flock of redpolls, 20-30 birds, maybe newly arrived from the south. On the way home we stopped at a previous crossbill site to scan the conifers (with no luck) when a bubbling "wik-wik-wik" alerted us to a female cuckoo flying past.

Yesterday, a walk up the quarry road brought our first dragonfly of the year - a four-spotted chaser, a welcome sight on the still-brown bracken.But we had to be content with just the song of a wood warbler from deep, deep in the trees.