A pleasant afternoons walk at Bodney in warm sunshine and a temperature of 21 degrees Celsius. The wind was a moderate south-westerly.
My aim this afternoon was to check weedy ditches for signs of migrant activity, and one particular ditch with lots of weed cover such as Rosebay Willowherb, reeds, and Sallow, is always worth checking.
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| Ditch at Bodney. Always worth checking for migrants. |
A few
Swallows and
House Martins were seen overhead, however, checking the above ditch soon provided me with
3 Stonechats, one of which was a well marked juvenile bird. Their behaviour was typical of this species, they used the posts and fence to watch from, and would often fly into open grassland to pick up food. They also visited a large Bramble bush, the only one nearby.
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| Stonechat (juvenile) at Bodney 20th August. A strongly marked bird. |
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| Stonechat in Bramble at Bodney 20th August. |
Stonechats are short distant migrants and without doubt these birds originated from a nearby Breckland heath. This delightful species is a regularly seen bird in ditches and field edges on my patch at this time of year.
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