A grey but good day in Regent's Park

11th April Regent's Park on a dull damp day

The day began with the overnight rain continuing until 7.30am, the low cloud didn't kept the top of the BT Tower hidden until 11.00am. A walk around before we started replacing the next section of damaged fencing around one of the reed beds in the Longbridge Sanctuary wasn't yielding much apart from 2 singing Sedge Warblers. Then as we walked through Queen Mary's Gardens things started to happen. Below is a list of what was seen from 8.00am onwards.

Hawfinch: 2 birds skimmed the tops of the trees as they headed NE over the Royal Parks Offices at 8.05am.
Little Owl: 1 was calling from trees just east of the Fountain on the Broadwalk area 28.
Redwing: One was calling from a Plane tree near the Little Owl.
Wheatear: Yesterdays male was still on the recently seeded new wild flower meadow (muddy patch) area just west of the Broadwalk Cafe. While scanning the open spaces , area 37 we picked up 1 then 2 more Wheatears we kept on going over the area and soon we had 5 birds including yesterdays one. We had heard but hadn't seen Meadow Pipits as they were above the low cloud. We were heading back to the Bird Sanctuary when a couple of M.Pipits dropped down. They don't tend to stay long, usually they are flushed by dogwalkers. These two landed on rope protecting a wicket, as we watched them 2 more Wheatears appeared, a check of where the others were soon proved there were now 7 on the deck. The morning was turning into the best day for this species for several years. Another check of the pipits and on the rope with them was a stunning male Whinchat. Because of the wet start to the day I had left my camera in the truck, had I got time to fetch it before it gets flushed. I left Dave to keep an eye on it and scurried off, I cant run, to old for that. I was back as soon as possible and the bird was still waiting, well not quite waiting it was quite flighty. So keeping my distance I headed in a wide ark to get some record shots. Then the unmistakable sound of a Yellow Wagtail flying over took our attention away from the Chat. The wagtail turned and dropped to the deck by the pipits, then more pipits came in to join the others. Now where did the Chat go, we soon found it but had to make do with distant photos as it was constantly moving from one stretch of rope to another. Things then became quieter, until I remarked that I am surprised we hadn't seen an hirundine and within 30 seconds a male Swallow was singing as he headed north. Dave and separated and I headed back to the truck and had a Fieldfare, half an hour later after a quick tea break and on our way to repair the fence the Fieldfare flew NW towards Lords.
Meadow Pipit: the total number seen was 25, all the birds heading in a NE direction.