I went out for a walk today - it was a bit chilly but also pleasantly sunny, which meant I was able to find a new insect searching for flowers in one of the fields. I also did see a hoverfly in a patch of woodland, but it was too flighty for me to get a good view:
16. Common carder-bee Bombus pascuorum
I had hoped that I would see some spring migrants - the website for the Essex Birdwatching Society has logged sightings of sand martins and yellow wagtails not far from me, so I figured I would check the fishing lake and sheep fields for the former and latter species respectively; I saw neither. Although I saw no new bird species, the walk was far from poor.
It started with a good clear view of a male blackcap in full song, followed by a prolonged view of a kingfisher hunting at close distance on a pair of farmland ponds (hunting what, I don't know - the ponds certainly have no fish or amphibians in them) and then, perhaps most interesting of all, a group of four green woodpeckers all in close proximity in the same field as the kingfisher pond. Two of the woodpeckers were doing a ritualised 'dance' with their heads held upright and each bird moving their head from side-to-side. They hung around even when I crossed the field and only when I was walking away did they all fly off together into a dense hedgerow.
