Friday on my Mind - The Easybeats

 After a night of seemingly incessant hooting from the local

TAWNY OWL
the day broke, as has become the way of things, with a raptuous Dawn Chorus but worryingly still not a peep from a Cetti's Warbler. Via the 2 home-bound traps came another brace of First for the Year

COMMON WAVE
and

NUTMEG
but very little save the

ROWAN

bursting into Leaf with some traces of Blooms.
Greeted at the Traps in the SPC by an

Orange-lipped Slug
pearched on the collar within we recover 2 further addition to the year list via

DINGY MOCHA

along with

SCARCE PROMINENT
and next finding

2 male

along with a single female

had returned to the
Gravel Pit

With both adult

KESTRELs

now being seen transiting from the nest site to the grasslands of

BOURNEMOUTH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
and seen in hover we paid a visit to the nest site in the nearby stables

to find 2 well grown

juveniles,
while later up north our excitement was limited to our

First of the Year

LESSER WHITETHROAT

while our exit from the Solar Panel Compound

coincided with the arrival of the

Tugwell Spraying Team
we'll have to bite our lip on this one!!!!

Bah HUMBUG - Ebenezer Scrooge

 Having only seen 2 Little Grebes together on but 3 occassions across the year thus far, incuding the previous day's (nest / eggs) Post,  today's report came not only as a surprise but also with it much joy, with today's Post dedicated entirely to what we Birder's decribe as Humbugs, without captions, across that Magical Hour!

How Many Socks Did That Knock Off??

Cuckoo Cocoon - Genesis

 Another day, another Moth Trap from whence came fresh to the year

PEACOCK MOTH

along with a

SCALLOPED HOOK-TIP
bringing the annual total to a nice round 50 plus a wayward

SPIDER
while at Pondside incubation seems to have taken off in ernest at long last with the sitting

MUTE SWAN

giving us just a fleeting glimps of the precious cargo below.

Looks like c7 again exactly the same as last year when they all lived to tell the tale.
From down south there was little to report save for c7

ROE DEER

which were only allowing c2 at a time followed by a

CHEVAL BLANC
looking as good as that Fine Claret of France tastes.
While the parent Mutes presented something of a thrill watching what has been considered a 'lone'

LITTLE GREBE
was seen to be carrying either nesting material or more likely food, either way stimulating a longer search across the site and finding, directly underfoot, this

NEST

Parent Bird??

containing c2 eggs as far as we could see, with hopefully more observations to follow.

Inside the Solar Panel Compound little more than this loan male
CHAFFINCH
along with this

LAMB
which looked as if it were dead, sounding the horn, just to be sure, and luckily not.
As if overnight one of the 2 Apple Trees close to the Heath had sprung into bloom

bringing to mind the poem of Welshman W. H. Davis - 'Leisure' c1911.
What is this life so full of care,
we have not time to stand and stare?
as this area dueing WWII was an R.A.F. base and often wonder if it were these military men and women who might have planted these trees?
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
and stare as long as Sheep and Cows!

 but no time for standing and staring too long as from the other side of the Moors River came the unmistakeable strains of our first

 our first of the year

and most welcome

CUCKOO

blink and it will be a case of
"In July away I fly, in August away I must"