Another lovely day in this fine spell of weather so hopefully it will continue! As it was a lovely soft evening we decided to go along the river almond in search of kingfishers! It was a nice soft evening so lots of swallows flying about as we made our way to kingfisher territory. Saw the mallard with 5 ducklings so hope they all make it. We stopped at the corner where sandmartin nests are and spotted a few martins going in and out the nests at great speed! Whilst this was happening a siskin landed in the tree right above us! More and more swallows and sandmartins appeared but curiously there was no sign of any swifts despite an abundance of flies and insects etc.
After about 30 minutes we got a sighting of 2 kingfishers on the opposite bank and they proceeded to fly back and forward for a while and then one landed on a branch in the river and we got a good view through the binocularsof those amazing colours! Absolutely delightful! They kept going back and forward for a while so it was an excellent sighting. Spotted my first orange tip butterflies of the year so that was a bit of a relief as have always seen them in April in previous years.
After this about 930pm we went to a local ruined barn where we had been told by a local wildlife person that there may have been barn owls nesting there. The building looked ideal but after staking it out for a while we did not spot any barn owls and a man living in the cottage nearby told us he had seen any owls in the last year or so. has the very wet spring affected them as they cannot fly/hunt when it is raining? We will maybe try again to spot them but it does not look promising. On the way back in fading light we saw lots of bats flying along the edge of the trees and hedgerows. Another relaxing walk.
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