May 06 2014
The first birding group morning of the month was to Macclesfield Forest and we had hopes for Flycatchers and Redstarts. We were rather disappointed in this and generally speaking it was a bit of a flop – except that it was a nice day for a walk and we did see a couple of interesting birds, if not the species we expected.
May 01 2014
The garden started to perk up at the start of the month as the Blackbirds and Tits seemed to have young to feed already. Our Dunnock sings from 4.30am onwards pretty much all day. We have had three Goldfinches at most which is a terrible decline from previous years but we at least saw a pair of Greenfinches on one of our feeders for the first time in ages. Towards the end of the month bird activity increased.
May 01 2014
Our last day in the New Forest was given over to a visit to the coast to get some birds we had not seen yet. Our first port of call was Keyhaven where we checked out the times of the ferry to Hurst Castle which is at the end of the long shingle spit. The answer was that after 1st April they are every 20 minutes starting at 10am (£5.50p return). We had looked at the council pay and display car park charges were extortionate and the since we had a bit of a wait for the first ferry, we decided to drive along to Hurst Beach first where we parked up along Saltgrass Lane which has the advantage that it is free (bear in mind though that if there is a particularly high tide when you are there you might just find your car under water when you return, as the sign indicates that the gate may be locked then!).