Spring is in the Air?

My car had it's annual MOT today, (only needed one side light bulb that I'd missed) and as it was in Kearsney I had an hour or so at Bushy Ruff when I picked it up.

I had no luck along the stretch of river where I've seen Kingfishers on previous visits, partly because an industrious worker was blowing leaves into piles with a rather noisy piece of kit. I have to say I question to value of this work. If they need to be moved good old fashioned, pollution free manual means would be more sympathetic to the environment.

I did find a pair of Grey Wagtails by the edge of the lake and the male flew onto the Lodge roof and had a sing. The beautiful weather certainly made it feel like spring and there was quite a lot of enthusiastic bird song, possibly prompted by the sunshine.

Quite a few Song Thrushes where singing, but they seemed to be quite shy, mainly staying hidden in the evergreen trees. Song Thrushes are one of the species that will sing most of the year, but as spring arrives they are more consistent and become one of the mainstays of the dawn chorus.

Not only Blue Tits, but also Great Tits and Coal Tits were very vocal. Blue Tits often get very active in good weather at the beginning of the year, investigating potential nest sites and displaying territorial protection, but when the weather is bad this dies down. Inevitably they nest pretty much at the same time each year.

I noticed the Mute San swimming towards me with the sun behind it. Normally I do everything I can to get the sun behind me, but in this case I thought the back-lit image was effective.

I could resists trying again with these Teasels, I know it is completely the wrong lens, but I still quite liked the pattern that the fine spines produced around the edge of each seed head.

A look at the bay failed to find anything unusual, but I did like the patterns on the wing coverts of this juvenile Herring Gull.

The seas was calm and there were lots of gulls (Black-headed and Herring) and a large group of loafing Fulmars off shore. Occasionally a Cormorant came by, and two Brent Geese flew up channel. No Auks, Grebes or Divers were on show today, but the windier weather towards the end of the week may change this.