June 15th-16th

I continually ignore what is truly on my doorstep, my patch at Ferry Hills is a ten minute drive but my actual local area in Dunfermline is Duloch Park. At first glance it's not the greatest place for birds but there is a  large pond with an extensive reed bed which is actually really nice habitat. In the last two years a reed warbler has been recorded here, an uncommon species in Scotland with very few confirmed breeding records in Fife.
So with this in mind I went to see if there was any sign this year and sure enough one was chuntering away amongst the more numerous Sedge Warblers. Not only that but a second bird was watched feeding near to the male before disappearing into the reeds so quite likely a pair. Will certainly be making the effort to prove breeding this year.
In addition there were  7 singing sedge, 3 singing Reed Bunting and a Water Rail giving territorial calls so not bad within a few minutes of home.

Today a walk around Devilla Forest, somewhere in the west of Fife I don't go to very often, was interesting  particularly for the number of Tree Pipit territories. A total of 9 territories was a good number for this rather locally distributed breeding bird in the county.