This photo was taken 7pm last night outside the Kings Head pub - proper snow on 5th June, last time I saw that was 1976 and for 3 months after that the temp hardly fell below 75 degrees - lets hope it repeats itself!
First however the bad news, our house martin nest has fallen off the house. It seemed to coinside with some light rainfall so perhaps it just got wet and slipped off, I assume this is a fairly common occurence?? As yet they dont seem to be interested in rebuilding in the same place. The swallows however continue to thrive and we are expecting that some chicks may hatch pretty soon and the sparrows are still busy feeding their young in the nest box.
Went for a short walk up the gill this pm once the torrential rain had stopped and some sunshine had come out. The swallows, swifts and house martins were really busy feeding with light winds and loads of insects up and about. Up at Pot Ing there were several pairs of wheatear busy feeding chicks and as we headed down towards the river we picked up our first spotted flys of the year - always great to see them and we are really lucky here as we seem to get alot of them still. On our short stroll back to Gunnerside bridge we saw about 6/7 of them. Other birds picked up were, goldfinch, redpoll, song thrush, oyster catcher, lapwing, blackbird, blue tit, meadow pipit, mistle thrush, starling, blackheaded gull, great tit, robin, jackdaw, willow warbler. At the bridge we did a quick scan of the bushes and were delighted to pick up both grey wag and spotted fly and even happier to see that they were both nesting right next to the bridge, even allowing great views into the SF's nest itself - it will be interesting seeing how they both get on as last years SF's in this location were unsuccessful nesters.
