It's all starting to kick off already! On the last day of March I found a WILLOW WARBLER singing away in the trees by the junction between the Castle Mill Stream and the Thames. In addition, over the weekend a couple of SWALLOWS have been seen, one by Sam Jones (who also reported a LITTLE RINGED PLOVER) and one by myself. Apart from that, duck numbers are sharply down now but there were still six OYSTERCATCHERS about over the weekend and six SHELDUCK today.
 |
| Wigeon numbers are really down now |
It does seem that spring is rather early this year: certainly the Willow Warbler and Swallow sightings are a week or so earlier than I would normally expect them and this theory is also born out in the mothing world where species are being seen earlier than they would normally be. Talking of mothing, I've become very much a fair weather moth'er these days but this last week there was one very good day which prompted me to dig out the old trap and I was suitably rewarded with a nice haul for March. I will post something on that separately.
One thing that I have to flag up is the state of the Meadow floods. The recent dry spell is really taking its toll on the flood levels which have halved in just a week or two. With the forecast for more settled dry weather for at least the next week I'm starting to worry that they might dry up too early to get much in the way of the spring wader passage this year. Fingers crossed for some rain soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment