Sunday February 28 - gathering pace

 I can never quite decide whether I like this time of the year or not. It feels like the season is on the top of a slide, a marble slowly inching forward, then gently gathering pace before plunging through April and losing velocity through May until by June it's all over.

But this morning, a sunny morning in February, I definitely love the anticipation of all that is to follow. I'm searching for new arrivals, and at the pool I find five Tufted Ducks. It's a start.

Tufted Ducks

The pool is already starting to lose its water, but there is enough to keep the Tufties happy, and also a Coot and the two young Mute Swans.

The real sense of anticipation comes with the first look at the flash field. A party of 19 Black-headed Gulls have returned, while the three Wigeon, and the pair of Shelducks are still occupying the furthest flash. Just four Lapwings are in residence, so it looks like their slow decline in breeding numbers will continue this year. A smattering of Teal are on the furthest flash, but more occupy the nearest one bringing the total up to 28. Several of the males are displaying, a further sign that spring is in the air.

I search in vain for any waders and am just about to give up, when one appears. The first Green Sandpiper of the year flies in, calling. It pitches into the water by the rushes and starts swimming, before taking off and finding something sufficiently shallow at the back of the flash.

Green Sandpiper

Now it really feels spring-like. Treecreepers are singing from the alders bordering the the Morton Brook, and two Great Spotted Woodpeckers are drumming a duet as I reach Stapenhill Wood.

It's not really a duet. "This is my territory, keep off," is what they are actually saying. I hear three on the patch today.

A corner of the weedy field provides me with a handful of feeding Lesser Redpolls, Reed Buntings, and Linnets but the show is over for another day.

I can't wait for the next visit.