Yesterday was a blank day for the bird migration - hardly surprising as the weather was awful. Today was better. I spotted a whinchat taking a bath in our pond. I missed the bath, but I got some photos of him drying himself in an apple tree.

At the same time, a grey wagtail was inspecting our recently dug potato bed.

Not migrants, but a couple of goldfinches spent several minutes on our mega sunflower feeder. They returned later with one of them struggling to get some fluff off their beak. I noticed a couple of days ago that something had been pulling up the fleece liner of our pond. Earlier today I spotted a great tit gathering some of the fluff for nesting material and this goldfinch has presumably been doing the same.

Lastly, a couple of new migrants for this year; a lesser whitethroat and a willow warbler.

It has rained a bit and, as usual, our driveway is covered with this slimy stuff which is, apparently, a cyanobacterium Nostoc commune. Some people eat this according to Wikipedia. This is a new species for the garden, but I really don't know what category I'm going to put it in yet.

It was peculiar weather today with sunshine mixed with heavy rain, wind and even a thunderstorm. The only addition to yesterday's bird migration list was a wryneck (heard but not seen).

Instead I've just included some photos of a few birds I tend to not bother photographing.

As usual I've taken the week off work to observe the bird migration. Today is normally the first big day and it didn't disappoint this year. We recorded 31 bird species including our first whinchats and house martins of the year. I didn't manage to get any photos of the house martins as I've got to relearn my technique for these fast birds.

Also present were several common redstarts.

We rarely see baby squirrels around the house, but recently there have been two running around the house. Christine saw one run up the house into the eaves - so maybe there's a nest up there.

This black redstart was "singing" his typewriter song in our willow today.

A siskin was indulging itself on our mega-sunflower seed feeder while keeping an eye out for the kestrel. A green woodpecker was taking a drink from our pond.

A kestrel was flying around the valley today. The other birds don't like it - but I saw the first blackcap of the year hiding in our hawthorn. We've been hearing the blackcaps for a week or so but this is my first sighting.

We added a muddy area to our pond at the end of last year - primarily to provide a breeding area for fire salamanders, but a secondary use is for nesting material for bird. I expected maybe starlings or house martins to use this mud, but today we had magpies collecting it.

There are still a few common redstarts about. They usually only stopover for a short time with us.

We've heard some chiffchaffs for a week or so. This one was splashing around in our pond today.

Last year, we had a brambling stay with us well into the summer. Today, this fine male was still around so I thought I'd take a photo in case this is the last record of this winter.

I saw a couple of bats flying over the house last night. They didn't stick around, so I reckon they were leaving their winter quarters and flying to their summer roosts.

Today though, we spotted a Daubenton's bat flying over the pond around 3pm in full daylight! He came and hung in our plum tree for a rest and then returned to the pond.

It was so warm yesterday that I had the moth trap out. It got cold overnight, but even so, it was quite a good session. Here's a photo of a brindled beauty moth camoflaged quite well on one of our sandstone rocks. And a new species for the garden was this Agonopterix yeatiana.

A few more common redstarts were about today as it was another warm day.

Our first common redstart of the year was in the garden today together with a few black redstarts that arrived back a few days ago.

Lots of birds around our pond today. A couple of song thrushes were looking for worms and slugs and a crested tit was having a drink.