Wednesday April 16

I was trying to think of a word to describe the experience of April for me, and I think I've come up with one; frenetic. In the past if I'd been asked for my favourite month I'd always have said May. Not any more. April is definitely the new May, but it passes so quickly.

Already I'm starting to worry that it's too late to see some species locally. Ring Ouzels have surely gone through, Curlews too. Actually they are pretty much lost as a local breeder.

On Monday I "picked" Broad Green as the venue for my latest wander. It didn't seem to have a lot going for it, but at least it had altitude. One the higher areas within the 10k Circle around Redditch, I was pleased to find lots of recently sown crop fields. Within thirty minutes of leaving the car my constant scanning of these paid off as I at last added Wheatear to the year-list.

A nice male, maybe bound for Iceland or Greenland rather than Scotland. The dark brown flight feathers at least suggested this was a bird which was making its first return to its breeding grounds.

This turned out to be the only addition to my list, but I did also see a Red Kite, and singing Linnet to pad out the notebook with a little quality.

The following day I was back to my routine of pre-breakfast dashes. This time it was to Earlswood where the shingle island hosted one of four Common Terns, a couple of White Wagtails, three Little Ringed Plovers, a Common Sandpiper, and an Oystercatcher. The latter had been visiting fairly frequently during the last few days, but never when I'd been there.

The previous day Lyn and I had been at the cinema when Mark C was down at Haselor watching a Greenshank. By the time I saw the message, it had been followed by negative news so I thought my chance had gone. Scroll forward to Tuesday afternoon, and it was visible once more. I had to go. This is generally more of an autumn species than a spring one, but I had still only seen one bird in each of the previous two years.

Thankfully it was still there, and showing pretty well.

The reason I called it an autumn bird is that three or four times as many make the return trip as their numbers are swelled by newly hatched juveniles. Although for all birds there are a lot more of them in autumn, this doesn't necessarily mean they are easier to see at that time.

The fact is that for a lot of migrants, spring is your best chance. Bird want to be seen in Spring, not by humans but by other birds. So they arrive in striking plumage, or they sing loudly, or they just strut about in the middle of fields instead of skulking in hedgerows.

If you want to see a Cuckoo or a Grasshopper Warbler, or hope to get lucky with a Wood Warbler or Pied Flycatcher spring is by far your best bet.

This morning I pre-breakfasted at Morton Bagot. It was cold and windy, and I saw almost nothing. A pair of Little Ringed Plovers was at least new for the site for the year.

But tomorrow could be different, you just never know.