Chiffchaff

Up early for the first breeding bird transect of the year - no problem with social distancing in an urban wood at 6.30 in the morning! All the usual woodland birds were recorded, including several sightings of ring-necked parakeet, which I first recorded in the wood this time last year. I also had a thrillingly close encounter with a red kite and watched a nuthatch investigating last year's nest site. This chiffchaff was calling from the top of a field maple, the first of the migrant species to be recorded, though I suspect that blackcap will be singing by my next visit.

Later I dropped Alex at work, and then went for a walk at Deeping Lakes NR, where I met up with Chris and Lizzy - really strange as neither of us had particularly planned to go there and just happened to turn up more-or-less at the same time. We had a nice walk round together, with excellent views of several goosander on the River Welland, and a couple of pairs of oystercatcher on the pits as well as all the usual suspects including large numbers of black-headed and lesser black-backed gulls.

At the end of the day Pete and I  went to Waitrose to buy some things for tomorrow's Mother's Day meal. Very few staples left, but fortunately we were mainly looking for treats, so managed to buy everything on our list. Possibly one of the strangest shops I've ever done - passion fruit, padron peppers, antipasti, pumpkin gnocchi, pistachio ice cream and marinated anchovies among other things! Strange times indeed...