SPOTTED FLYCATCHERS and LESSER WHITETHROAT

After reading your Birding Amersham Blog of 1st June Lesley and I today visited Dawes Common, Sarratt and the old clay pit area near Bovingdon brickworks to look for Spotted Flycatchers and Lesser Whitethroats.

We first went to Dawes Common and arrived at about 8.30hrs. We parked in the 3-car car park and almost immediately saw a Lesser Whitethroat on the edge of the wood which was calling very well. The wood was alive with birds and we quickly came across a number of Spotted Flycatchers. I could not like to say that there were two pairs but there were two or three birds that were very active. We also had Treecreeper, Great, Blue and Coal Tits all feeding young. When we returned to the car park at about 10.00hrs we could no longer locate any Lesser Whitethroat.

After Dawes Common we went to the old clay pits at Bovingdon. Although we had good numbers of Common Whitethroat and Chiffchaff we failed to pick up on any Lesser Whitethroat (Stuart Wilson)