John Lerpiniere led a walk at the\nSearles Farm gravel pit complex near Burghfield on the evening of Tuesday 30\nApril. While the group were assembling, Lesser Whitethroat and Garden Warbler\nwere heard. John pointed out that the tangle of bramble and scrub around the\ngravel pits was ideal Nightingale habitat, and a singing bird was soon heard\nfrom the dense undergrowth beside the lane. The group waited for several\nminutes, listening to the varied song, with its characteristic repeated\nwhistles and phrases. The walk continued along a footpath between two lakes,\nwhere Blackcaps were the most numerous warblers. Three male Red-crested\nPochards, with bright red beaks, were seen on the lake to the south of the\npath, while there were a number of Great Crested Grebes on the lake to the\nnorth. A party of Long-tailed Tits passed through the willows beside the path\nand a pair of Canada Geese escorted their young family into the water. A\ndistant Nightingale was heard, then another bird started singing close to the\npath, but ceased singing as the group approached. John led the party a little\nway up Cottage Lane, but no new birds were heard. At the start of the walk\nback, another distant Garden Warbler was heard. Highlight of the evening was\nwhen two Nightingales, one on each side of the path, started singing in\ncompetition, joined briefly by an explosively loud Cetti\u2019s Warbler. A strange\ncreaking call turned out to be Grey Herons in the heronry amongst the willows\non the far bank of the gravel pit to the north. Above the trees at one point\nwere a number of swirling black columns of flying insects. When the group\nwalked back past the spot where the first Nightingale of the evening had been\nheard, it was no longer singing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Lerpiniere led a walk at the Searles Farm gravel pit complex near Burghfield on the evening of Tuesday 30 April. While the group were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_customify_content_layout":"","_customify_sidebar":"","_customify_page_header_display":"default","_customify_disable_header":"","_customify_disable_header_top":"","_customify_disable_header_main":"","_customify_disable_header_bottom":"","_customify_disable_page_title":"","_customify_disable_content_vertical_padding":"","_customify_disable_footer_top":"","_customify_disable_footer_main":"","_customify_disable_footer_bottom":"","_customify_breadcrumb_display":"","_customify_header_transparent_display":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-field-trip-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4359,"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358\/revisions\/4359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdnhs.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}