On we go to summer

0915 - 1215 cloudy but brightening, some sunshine, cool to warm

A slightly longer walk today....and encouraging that it took 3 hours, same time as the other day though a shorter distance....hoping to get round the entire site in one go quite soon...will be nice...and also try to get out early at the weekend as well....

Anyway...as usual, hoping for increased numbers of warblers.....as you know the birds were, mostly, late to site, some by a couple of days others by a week or so mostly due, I think, to 'the beast from the east'.....so I'm beginning to wonder if the warbler totals are going to be affected....not just numbers breeding on site but numbers passing by......last year I counted nearly 60 Chiffchaffs on one day around the site and so far this year it a struggle to get to around 30, though these are 30 birds that see to be remaining on site....anyway....todays totals....

Chiffchaff 17
Blackcap 15
Willow Warbler 5
Nightingale 6
Lesser Whitethroat 4
Garden Warbler 3
Whitethroat 14
Cettis Warbler 1

Reed and Sedge Warblers are all around the site....but mostly Reed....

So things are certainly improving....though we are now nearing the end of April....so some concern is needed...

So...other stuff around the site....first....and especially at this time of year....the obligatory Bluebell photos....probably the one bit of wildlife everyone can name and love...

Bluebell....looking good....

A week of hot weather....and North Field is already beginning to look parched....

...somebody has cracked the field....

Field Horsetail....updating the photos....in late Spring it produces the light brown stem topped with the cone as in the photo....

....light brown late Spring...

....this is then followed by light green shoots which can reach up to 60cm...as below...they are now starting to appear....

Field Horsetail light green shoot.....

Plenty of Orange Tip butterflies about the site today...though my first for the year was in the garden a couple of days ago...

Orange Tip....

...now....white butterflies....I'm not an expert so if one pops along and wishes to correct me that's fine...Large and Small Whites...or Cabbage...anyway...this, I believe, is a Small White...

Small White Butterfly

 The water level has indeed gone down....and although most of the site is now dry enough for boots rather than wellies....the footpath at the western end of Middle Pit is still very much waterlogged....and even if we have a keen dry spell it will probably be like this for some time as the pits are still bursting to nearly full of water....

Couldn't quite capture the moment when two Lesser Black-backed Gulls were harassing this Buzzard...next time...

Buzzard

Other birds on site....Cuckoo as usual.....the Coal Tit continues to sing in East Copse....the 2 Lapwing look as if they have set up home just west of West Pit, in the ploughed field south of the evergreen woodland (West Wood)...how long will it last?

Several Swallow were at West Pit briefly and joined by a few Sand Martins....

Last....Heather Lark...as the Germans would put it....

A huge surprise today, Woodlark has turned up....and singing like mad....poor photo below....at one point it was flying around with another bird, possibly another Woodlark...only time will tell...but I suppose this is irony itself....

....me not wanting the guys to come along and do any work near the quarry....and possibly having lost the Meadow Pipits from that area....but now they have made the ground rough and a few bits....and I mean a few...of Birch are laying around....it seems to have ended up looking like Woodlark territory....a spill over from Broadwater?....or Tudeley?....