Reporting Your Sightings

To help keep this page as up-to-date and informative as possible, please send your sightings and any pictures taken onsite (please see 'Guidelines for submissions' on the KOS Photo Gallery for details of how to resize your pics etc.) to Gordon Allison by clicking here.

The wood is alive with birdsong throughout the month. Nightingales take centre stage, with usually 12-15 pairs. Blackcap is the commonest woodland warbler, with smaller numbers of other species eg. chiffchaff, willow & garden warbler and lesser whitethroat. Turtle doves "purr" from dense cover and you may be lucky enough to hear the "squeaky gate" begging call of a young long-eared owl. Bullfinch and yellowhammer are just about hanging on as breeding species on the reserve. The tree canopy now largely obscures the activity in the heronry, but birds can be glimpsed and there is still plenty of coming and going of herons and egrets.
Out on the marsh, nesting waders will have young, and regular passage waders can include greenshank, ruff and common sandpiper. Water rail can be heard squealing from the reed fleets and a quartering marsh harrier will sometimes be joined by one of the local barn owls. Overhead, squadrons of swifts and hirundines feed above the reservoirs.
Northward Hill is not renowned for producing rare birds, but previous Mays have seen white storks in 1998 & 2004, black-winged stilts in '95 & '98, marsh sandpiper in '94 and rose-coloured starling in '76. There have also been 3 records of icterine warbler and several wood warblers and golden orioles.

31st: 1 red kite (N. Hill)

30th: 2 hobby (N.Hill)

29th: 1 redstart, 4 Med gull, 50+ swift, 1 willow warbler, 2 garden warbler, 2 lesser whitethroat (N. Hill)

23rd: 335 brent geese, 10 great crested grebe, 5 avocet, 3 Med gull (Motney Hill); 2 LRP (Shorne:per. J Young)

21st: 4 nightingale, 2 garden warbler, 2 turtle dove, 2 lesser whitethroat (N. Hill)

19th: 1 merlin, 1 marsh harrier, Cetti's warbler, turtle dove, cuckoo (N. Hill)

10th: 1 barn owl, 1 tawny owl, 1 peregrine, 2 marsh harrier, 1 water rail, 2 Med gull, 1 wheatear. 3 yellow wagtail, 4m Cetti's warbler, 1 garden warbler, 1 turtle dove, 5 bearded tit (N. Hill)

9th: 1 turtle dove, 1 garden warbler, 1 willow warbler, 8+ nightingale (N. Hill)

6th: 2 marsh harrier, avocet, yellow wagtail (N. Hill)

3rd: 3 swift, little egret, sedge warbler, nightingale (N. Hill)

1st: lesser whitethroat (N. Hill)