You win some, you lose some

With the cold windy weather I have not been out on the patch recently so I took the opportunity to get out this afternoon.

The middle of last week I found 2 oystercatcher nests in a sugarbeet field and a lapwing behaving suspiciously so I wanted to check to see what was happening with them. With all the dry weather, a lot of the crops are not growing well so are providing ideal nesting conditions for waders, skylarks and pipits. On my way to my ‘breeding field’ I found another oystercatcher nest! Just before I got to the main field, a buzzard flushed from a tree and two lapwings came up of the field and chased it off. I sat down under the cover of a large tree to see where they would go. It didn’t take long for the first one to settle back onto her nest and the second one wasn’t far behind. It wasn’t so good when I got to the other side of the field as both of the oystercatcher nests has disappeared. Found a 2nd oystercatcher nest of the day just before I got home leaving me with 3 still on the go.

I am not sure why but as I was walking past the churchyard something made me go in to look for spotted flycatcher. I have never seen them there before but something said check…. I sat down on the bench and straight away a spot fly landed on one of the gravestones!!! Going to pop in and see the vicar and see if I can put an open fronted nestbox somewhere in the churchyard.

The spot fly put my patch yearlist on 78 species, 83 points