A bit late, but a brief summary of my Area walk which starts off from Woods Mill reserve car park, up the road to Oreham Common, then up to Sands Farm, Small Dole and back down to the reserve. Literally the first bird I heard on getting out the car was a purring Turtle Dove, a good start but he remained invisible! Interestingly, the car park is full of song of the common resident birds with a Nuthatch also chipping in. Walking up the road to Oreham Common where a Lesser Whitethroat was a nice addition to the list. There were a lot of birds still singing which may be the sound of desperate males still trying to find a mate. Wrens were especially vocal with a total of 28 singing birds, 16 Blackbirds, just 3 Song Thrushes with 11 Robins plus 1 juvenile. Sands Farm often attracts large numbers of Herring Gulls and there were 48 loafing in a field and it’s still a farm that has a reasonable population of House Sparrows and I counted 19 but undoubtedly there were more.

Of the summer migrants, I only recorded one Swallow, a single Cuckoo while among the Warblers, I heard a second Lesser Whitethroat at Woods Mill. I think there were 7 Common Whitethroat territories, there were 6 Blackcap territories and 12 Chiffchaffs were full song. Woods Mill holds 5-6 Reed Warbler territories and I saw one carrying food presumably to youngsters. On the lake I saw 3 Moorhen chicks with one adult but sadly there are no Little Grebes this year. Annoyingly, the Cetti’s Warbler that always shouts at me when I’m on the reserve decided to remain silent on the survey walk! A really nice sighting was a male Bullfinch sitting on top of a flowering Elder bush, his bright scarlet breast gleaming in the sun. 39 species recorded in total, a really enjoyable walk. (MR)