140 up

after a rather bird poor early start to the day a Turtle Dove appeared from nowhere on Waters' Edge and the first three Swifts were scything over the sailing pit; five minutes later there were 5 and then an hour later 22------two singing Grasshopper Warblers gave some early spring views but then it stopped; several hours later in the hot sun another locale attracted my attention and produced 7 species of raptor; returning home via the Wolds it was just as well that it was hot and I had the car window down or else I might have missed the jingling Corn Bunting back on his 2007 oak tree taking the year list tally to 140; a late evening visit to one of the Coversands heaths logged a late Great Grey Shrike after an entire winter without a local bird; the Scunthorpe bird group area year list thus rose to 160; as far as I know no-one has ever recorded 200 species in the area in a year so maybe I should have made more effort for Hawfinch and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker; my best so far is 196 in 2001. Future posts will show the Scunny tally in Blue