With the poor weather covering most of the UK we decided against a visit to New Fancy Watchpoint and instead headed into West Berkshire to look around some of the local sites.
Our first stop was Greenham Common near Newbury SU503651 where we soon saw Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Stonechat amongst others. As we headed towards the fire plane 3 small waders could be seen flying in the distance and as we approached we could see that they were Little Ringed Plovers, whilst watching them the skies turned grey and we decided to head back towards the runway to minimise the chance of getting soaked, hearing a Chiffchaff singing in the process. By the time we had made it back to the car the rain was starting to fall so we jumped in the car and drove round to the feeding station near the control tower car park, here we found 4 Bramblings using the feeders amongst the commoner birds and also got excellent views of a pair of Larks.
Next stop was Woolhampton Gravel pits and a walk around the pits brought me my first year sighting of Chiffchaff as one called from the trees in the wood by the Kennet canal. Good numbers of Sand Martins were busy feeding over the lake and 2 Shelduck were also present.
Finally we headed off to Padworth Gravel Pits where again Sand Martins were feeding over the waters surface, another Chiffchaff was heard calling and the male Scaup and Aythya hybrid were still present.
Added To My Year List
123. Little Ringed Plover
124. chiffchaff
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