Fishwick (Preston) & Brockholes Wetlands - 4th July 2009

Parked up and took a walk towards the farm where the Little Owl has been seen but again no sign of it. We did manage a couple of Linnet on the road approaching the farm and a large flock of Sparrows flitting between the various hedgerows, the most Sparrows we’ve seen in a long while. On one of the telephone posts sat a male Kestrel, tried to get a photo but he kept moving on as we got close but a Magpie was a little kinder as it sat and posed for us. Plenty of Swift above the woodlands and a mix of Sand Martin and Swallow feeding over the fields. On our walk back there seemed to be 40+ Swallow sitting on the telephone wire as if they are waiting to go, a little early I think yet especially with the weather we’ve been having of late.
I wasn’t going to report on Brockholes tonight but as Reece got a lifer I thought I better put fingers to keyboard. It was on the approach road we spotted the first Green Woodpecker and as it flew on further up the fencing I managed to get a few poor quality photos of it. The best sighting though was as we left with 4 Green Woodpecker feeding along the edge of the approach road not far from the feeding station. At least 2 were juvenile, not sure about the other 2 as they took flight as we approached. No photos as the auto focus is quite noisy on my pentax lens, need to start saving for the sigma when we get back from Crete.
Not much else around with a couple of Cormorant on No 1 pit and the usual across the main pit. No sign of the 3 Common Tern reported earlier either.