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A glorious dawn, if not slightly cool at 7°C, welcomed five members at 5am in Kirkdale, meeting in St Gregory’s church car park. We were also joined by Will, a youngster studying birdwatching as part of his Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. Birds were in full voice at the car park which, along with a blue sky and stunning Japanese cherry blossom, made for a fabulous start. Song thrush, blackbird, carrion crow, goldfinch and chaffinch were predominant from the car park but it was also good to hear blackcap, goldcrest and coal tit amongst others. Two male and one female bullfinch were very visible in the trees but only just audible by trained ears!

The walk headed north along the bridleway, crossing the dry bed of Hodge Beck at the ford and we were pleasantly surprised to hear a tawny owl calling from the wood. As expected slightly later the chiffchaff started to sing. Continuing north and eventually moving through more coniferous wood at least two jays were calling and before we headed back a great spotted woodpecker called and drummed.

It was nice to actually see a female blackcap back in the car park area whilst we had very welcome and enjoyable refreshments in the warm sunshine. Always worth a loiter as at this late stage we added swallow, greenfinch, sky lark and treecreeper. A two hour gentle meander of just short of 2km gave us a list of 30 species.

Although we were not recording botanically it was a bonus to find early purple orchids, spurge laurel, a super spread of herb paris spotted by Keith and some stunning examples of toothwort. The usual woodland flora of wood anemone, primrose, bluebells and dogs mercury were in abundance with yellow archangel and woodruff was just beginning to show. There was a good spread of wood stitchwort in flower at the ford crossing.

Wood stitchwort Stellaria nemorum

Quite a lot of elm was noted and this may well be a good place to find white-letter hairstreak later in the year. Very many thanks to Tom for leading and Janet for the lovely refreshments.

Birds

Blackbird
Goldfinch
Pheasant
Carrion crow
Song thrush
Rook
Wood pigeon
Chaffinch
Wren
Great tit
Blackcap
Blue tit
Coal tit
Stock dove
Bullfinch
Nuthatch
Tawny owl
Marsh tit
Robin
Chiffchaff
Grey wagtail
Dunnock
Mistle thrush
Jay
Great spotted woodpecker
Greenfinch
Swallow
Sky lark
Treecreeper
Jackdaw

View of the moon through cherry blossom