Dawn chorus walk

Last Thursday morning we had a dawn chorus walk led by Steve Piotrowski.  Steve is one of Suffolk's leading experts on birds, he's the author of the Birds of Suffolk, and leads training courses from beginner to advanced level.  On a cool morning we saw and heard a total of 35 species of birds and gained many insights into bird identification by sight and sound.  Nightingales seem to be doing very well on the course, we heard seven singing males and actually managed to get good views of one, which is unusual.  Other highlights were our first cuckoo of the spring and good numbers of linnet.  Steve was impressed by the work we've done on heathland and scrub management as this has enhanced the site as a habitat for birds and other wildlife.

The nightingales will be singing on the course for the next few weeks, for those of you who are not sure what a nightingale sounds like, here's a link to the nightingale pages of the xeno-canto website.
Nightingale song  xeno-canto is an excellent resource for anyone interested in birds - there are thousands of recordings of a very wide range of bird songs and calls.

Steve Piotrowski's bird track record of species and numbers of birds seen on the walk