What a difference a couple of miles and 200 miles makes. We left the lake district with a temperature of 17C and arrived home to 7C and it has not climbed above 10C all the next week and the keen NE winds staright off the north sea have increased the wind chill factor. Our plants had taken a battering from cold and frosts in the week that we had been away. It was time, however, to get back to the Horsefield to see what changes there had been. Nearly the first bird that I came across was a male whitethroat singing lustily from the thick bramble hedge separating the site from the agricultural land we cross to reach it. I enjoyed a pleasurable hour following this bird and a meery dance it led me. I did, however, mange one or two images. I shall try again soo. The other arrivals were the linnets which had arrived mob handed. Unlike the whitethroat they are only partial migrants and they spend the winter foraging on the salt marsh where food is more plentiful.
It was a bright and sunny day bit with a searing easterly wind. While we had been away the hedges had greened up as the hawthorn has come into leaf. Cow parsley is just beginning to come into flower and there is a heady scent from the rape crop that is now in flower. There is still some blackthorn blossom but the hawthorn is poised to take over.
Species seen:
- Wood pigeon
- Starling
- Blue tit
- House sparrow
- Crow
- Magpie
- Great tit
- Yellowhammer
- Reed bunting
- Whitethroat
- Skylark
- Linnet
- Blackbird
- Robin
- Dunnock
- Pheasant
- Peacock x1
- Green-veined white x6
- Small tortoiseshell x5
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