Fourteen of us met in the car park at the Jolly Farmer for our walk on Whitmoor Common.  It stayed dry but was rather overcast and windy for the morning.

In the woodland at the start we began to see numerous family parties of Great and Bue Tits with their fledgling youngsters.  Robins were plentiful too, some in juvenile plumage, and Wrens sang their hearts out for us.  Deeper into the woodland we saw a group of Long Tailed Tits, and a surprise Buzzard at close range perched up in a tree and flew off as we continued walking.  There were one or two Blackcaps singing in the woodland and we saw a couple of them.

As we approached the pond, we saw a Meadow Brown butterfly perched up on some foliage and observed that the ground was alive with baby frogs underneath our feet.  We were entertained by a pair of Treecreeper here.  Sadly, the pond seemed devoid of any birdlife, so we continued onto the boardwalk to the heathland areas.  Once on the more open areas, we had good views of some Linnets and some of the group saw a Stonechat.  A Song Thrush sat on a telegraph wire.  There was a surprise fly past from three Greylag Geese and a lone Cormorant.  Carrion Crows flew across at regular intervals and a Kestrel hovered overhead.  Another raptor that put in an appearance was a Red Kite.  A Jay was surprisingly willing to pose for us for prolonged views.

A nice sighting was a pair of Goldcrest feeding in a pine tree.  We spotted a couple of Whitethroats but the main treat was watching a large family of Dartford Warblers flitting around in the heather.  At one point they were joined by a Great Spotted Woodpecker which frightened them off temporarily.

Other birds heard on the way round were Green Woodpecker, Chiffchaff, Coal Tit, and Nuthatch.  By then end of the morning we had seen or heard around 30 species