Cuckoos calling and Sedge Warbler singing

 

My first trip to the Backwater Dam for some time where I saw three Cuckoos and heard a fourth on the opposite bank. An Osprey was fishing, Song Thrushes were singing and the Common Gulls were on guard duty. An unusual sight in summer was a male Wigeon which looked to be patrolling near a nest?

After a picnic we ventured onto Kinnordy where I got my first view of a Marsh Harrier, a male, some Buzzards and Crows chasing each other and a brilliant view of a singing Sedge Warbler, in two videos below.

As the sun was shining in the sky Olive was actively looking for and finding birds and insects, "peace in my lifetime"

The Sun Was Shining In The Sky  (YouTube)

Sedge Warbler singing, Kinnordy 52 secs      Sedge Warbler tight zoom      Cuckoo on wires into sun...  (Flickr)  

Cuckoo at Backwater Dam, one of four confirmed

As expected the local Meadow Pipits weren't happy, it's understandable as they'll not only lose their chicks but the suffer the stress of feeding the Cuckoo's giant offspring. Yet nobody seems to think of Cuckoos as harmful in the way they think of predators despite the same result. I welcome them all and hope everyone else will eventually, and we'll reach the balance that nature deserves 

A brief truce

I think this one was chased by two Meadow Pipits and flew very close in front of my parked car where Olive saw the chase. Photography might have been easier on the other bank of the reservoir with the sun at my back. I could get out of my bed earlier and have the sun at my back on the north bank...

Common Gull, most likely one of the parents of the three chicks sitting on the dam wall. I've seen chicks before swimming towards the wall and thought they'd fallen off the structure where the nests are, maybe in this case as there's three of them the nest might have been on the dam?

Keep away from my bairns!

Two in this photo

Olive was taken by the number of Green veined Whites, hence this photo

Osprey searching for a target at Kinnordy, one of two fishing at the same time

Sedge Warbler in front of the East Hide, we'd only walked along to see the new path and were rewarded. I'm not sure the path is appropriate to the setting and wonder how much it affected the nesting birds when it was being constructed

Buzzard at the west end of Kinnordy, it had been chased away by two Crows