Tuesday 26th June......what a Red-Letter day...or more exactly a Red-Letter morning!!....3 new and unreported Spotted Flycatcher nests, all with adults feeding young, and all in under a total of 2 hours spent searching.
I started the morning checking out Phil Espin's report of a bird seen on 19 June at the redundant Trinity Church, now the Trinity Centre (Antiques), in East Street, Horncastle, arriving there at 09.45. As I approached the Church, along the Church road, I immediately caught sight of a SpotFly hawking insects. It was soon joined by a second adult and together they frequented a large Holly Tree and an even larger Scots Pine only a few yards from the East side of the Church. I soon located the nest in the Pine Tree (resting on a branch and with a shelter of pine needles and smaller branches just above), and, from a safe distance through binoculars, I could easily see the young's heads being raised as the adults fed them. Thanks, Phil, for the initial info.
I then moved on to Woodhall Spa to check out 2 locations where birds had nested in 2011. First , I visited Iddlesleigh Road, where Robert Carr had alerted me to a Spotted Flycatchers nest( in a creeper against a house wall) with young, which I visited on on 24th June 2011. As I arrived this morning outside the house, what should be flycatching from the front garden fence....an adult Spotfly...briefly joined by a second......BUT, to my surprise they were flying ACROSS the road to a new nest site : the 3rd floor of a very large semi-detached house opposite, where the nest was clearly situated under the wooden eaves of an upper window. (Robert,....I can give you further details when you return from Alaska in a week or so.....and I wonder what you've added to your sighting of a Spectacled Eider by the light of the midnight sun a few days ago.
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My last visit was to the Dowager House Hotel in Spa Road, Woodhall Spa. Michael Harrison had alerted me to a pair of SpotFlys there in early July last year and which I saw on July 4th. Unbelievably, no sooner had I parked, than I caught sight of a SpotFly flycatching over the lawn in the large garden behind the Hotel.....and AGAIN there were 2 of them. It soon became clear where the nest was as they were regularly heading to a particular site with beakfuls of insects : a low extension (which includes the Main Bar), with the nest about 12 feet up in an inverted V shaped wooden section.....I had already bought a drink in the Lounge Bar to show willing and not trespass. I could easily see part of the nest and, from a safe distance, I watched through binoculars as the adults fed the young . When I left (as the mem-sahib required the car to get to her Pilates lesson this afternoon), it was c.11.45, only 2 hours since I had arrived in Horncastle.
A Red-Letter morning, indeed, and of the sort that rarely occurs in one's birding year.
Freddy
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Last year in my frequent searches for SpotFlys, I had getting on for 50 dips, and this year I've already had getting on for 20 (all by 30-45 minutes). Why do I do it ?.....well it's the challenge, innit ? I don't for one minute regret it all : but, hey! that's birding sometimes : it certainly beats sitting in front of a computer all day which many people have to do to earn a living.....and then we have days like the Normanby le Wold experience.....brilliant. 