A sign of the times.

Plenty of migrants around in Cheshire this week and even my local patch managed 4 Greenland Wheatears on the recently ploughed stubble Tuesday evening - only the 2nd -5th Wheatears I've seen in the area over the years. 6 Sand Martins flew through the previous night and there has been a good passage of Pied Wagails (no Whites!) and Meadow Pipits whilst a flock of 60+ Swallows passed through on Wednesday evening along with my first ever local Merlin. Other migrants are slow to trickle in and I've not seen either Whitethroat or Lesser Whitethroat locally yet.

Breeding is in full swing with the first brood of Blackbirds fledged in the garden. A second nest has eggs and House Sparrows, Blue Tits and Great Tits are building nests in the various boxes scattered around. The local Moorhens have hatched six young and it will be interesting to see how many survive the attentions of the local Magpies - in previous years I've seen them catch and kill the young chicks.

Song Thrush, Dunnock, Wren, Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Goldfinches are all nesting nearby and can be seen collecting nesting materila around the garden - I've been grooming Molly and leaving her hair out for the birds to collect.

Many thanks to Mark Payne who rang me with the unbelievable news that the Isles of Scilly police have bought their first speed camera. Unbelievable as it may seem people have been speeding on the islands narow lanes.

See link here: www.metro.co.uk/news/822969-isles-of-scilly-finally-gets-first-speed-gun

Rumour has it a pair of muppets were clocked speeding between pub and rare bird in a hired golf trolley last autumn.