Peter Jones Wildlife blog

Have converted a metal money box into a weatherproof box for ym Bat detector, and sound recorder. In the past I have left it out in the countryside overnight!, but this weekend I just ran it from the back garden. Both nights were fairly successful with a similar tally.. 1 Noctule, a handful of Serotine passes, and a lot of Common Pipistrelle activity.

Up early on Sunday morning for a walk around Lepe. Best birds were 6 Avocets high over, heading East, 1 Greenshank, 1 Turtle Dove, 1 Nightingale, and a Siskin overhead.

Finished my BTO Breeding Bird Survey at Broadlands Lake and Wade Bridge this weekend. As is often the case, the second survey whittled out with very little to add, except a distant Sedge Warbler. The best bird of the morning was a Red Kite overhead.. Within the survey boundary, but outside the timeframe. From there, I headed to Badminston for some vis-mig. With blue skies and a South wind it seemed like a good idea, but not much to report here. Baddesley Common was also fairly quiet over the weekend. I seem to struggle to find quality in Spring compared with Autumn. Only hope now lies with a few days in Shetland at the end of the month.

Spurred on by news of a Woodchat found up the coast at Keyhaven, I changed my plans for Sunday morning and headed to Calshot. The marsh always looks a good bet for migrants, but was pretty quiet with only Reed and Sedge Warblers about. Headed round the castle to scan the sea but this was no better. Ringed plover and Rock Pipit were all I could add here. So, took a few photos then decided to try my luck with the sky. Headed to a fairly small embankment which, despite it's low altitude had a superb view of Calshot, Fawley power station, and New Forest. I could even see the Spinnacker Tower in the far distance. This looks like a superb place to witness Vis-mig, and in the hot sun, I managed a small trickle of Hirundines, plus Kestrel, Hobby, Peregrine and several Buzzards. The one that got away was a possible Honey Buzzard over the coast.. Just too far to make any plumage out, though the structure looked very promising. Photos below of Sedge Warbler and Ringed Plover

A good weekend when all the floodgates seemed to open up with migrants, and left me thinking "why have I bothered going out searching for scraps for the last 2 months?!" The weekend started well with a Lesser Whitethroat singing outside the BBC building at White City. This area has a few bushes and trees, but is really manicured and isolated. I'd be surprised if I have got into double figures of species seen here. (although I did once record a Reed Warbler, so it kind of has some form). Over the weekend I visited Lepe twice. The first visit was pretty dire with just 6 Avocets to liven up the morning. Two days later, and the area was alive: Great Skua and Razorbill offshore 20+ Med Gulls overhead 1 Peregrine 2 Avocets 1 Greenshank 1 Dunlin Handful of Bar-Tailed Godwits and Whimbrels moving west 1 Nightingale 1 Lesser Whitethroat Plus Sandwich and Common Terns Calshot area had 3 Wheatears. Finally, Baddesley Common got in on the action with 2 Wheatears, a Tree Pipit, and 2

My Zoom H2 was starting to show it's age and drop a few sessions last year, so I changed to a newer model, a Zoom H2N. Main advantage of this newer model, according to the literature was a much better battery life, and also preserving recordings if the battery dies during the session. Both of these features are of paramount importance to me, but it was two additional features that have made this an excellent recorder for Bat recording.. 1. Auto-record: The H2N has a useful autorecord which records a new file each time the sound level exceeds a customised threshold. Having experimented with this feature, I get a lot of false triggers, but these are easily identified by their short file size. The bat files are easily extracted from the list. This could be very useful once I have tuned the recording level to get the best quality signals. This is not easy at the moment as I only have a single Pipistrelle roaming the garden each night! 2. 4 channel recording, The H2N can record from a B