Woodstock Wildlife Record

I enjoyed an excellent April at the Ardley ERF/Quarry patch with plenty of year ticks and also a few patch firsts. Up until now it has been the ERF lagoon that has attracted the waders over the past few years, but landscaping of an area of the quarry towards the end of last year created a nice shallow lake which looked perfect for passing waders. JFT and I have anticipated pretty much everything dropping in and for me at least I managed to get some really good birds even if some of those hoped for haven't appeared. But there's still time.  The stand-out bird of the month for me was a Whimbrel on 11th April. Unfortunately it flew almost as soon as I arrived and after circling a couple of times it headed off west, but did give me some nice flypasts before it went. It marks another great bird for the patch and another good species of wader to add to the list. Another new wader for me this month was Oystercatcher. Despite being relatively common locally I've never seen one at A...

Last year I struggled to see many Yellow Wagtails but over the past month Ardley has drawn in more than I've seen here previously. It is probably thanks to the current landscaping of the quarry that they are here in greater numbers. They have tended to be within the quarry but also spend time in the adjacent sheep fields at the site where 14 has been the max count, all males. On a couple of occasions some came close to the field's edge allowing me to get some photos that didn't require too much cropping which is always a bonus! They are sublime little gems with nature having found the perfect shade of yellow. And the fact these things bash their way to and from Africa every year makes them all the more impressive.