The first Large Red of the year

Saturday 12th May 2012 Cool start (6C), clear skies, light N/W breeze, dry. After such a miserable spring weather-wise, and with tetrads still to complete for the Nightingale survey, I was grateful for the company of my long-time birding pal, Patrick Giles. He was staying in Kent for the weekend, and kindly offered to share some survey work this morning. I picked him up in Faversham at 5am, and we started shortly afterwards in TR16Y. I did this tetrad a week ago and heard nothing, and most of it is housing estate, but there is some farmland and scrub by the railway line. I dropped PG off to walk the footpath across the fields, then took myself over the rough ground by the railway. PG didn't hear any, but I was really pleased having heard a bird singing by the footbridge over the railway line, just about audible from the thanet way. Next we covered TR16K, near Tyler Hill. Again we split up, with 2 obvious circular routes leading back to the car. This time we heard a single singing bird each, in exactly the same place as last week when I walked round. This afternoon my wife spotted the first Large Red Damselfly of the year near the pond.

Later I had a short walk at Brook. Little to report on the bird life, but the stream round the reservoir had many large carp splashing around, presumably spawning in the warm weather. Not sure what species of carp they were. This Whitethroat popped up on a bush briefly as I walked back to the car.