Although slightly hazier today, the sun did put in an appearance and the weather turned very warm. When Brian and I arrived at Winter's Pit, that and the adjacent marshes had lost that winter atmosphere. Song birds were giving voice, there were far fewer birds on the old brick pit and fewer flocks of wildfowl and waders were flying around. Interestingly the small flock of barnacle geese was still present.
We made our way around the pit, noting again the surprising lack of great crested grebes, although there were quite a few little grebes present. A marsh harrier periodically cruised over putting up the wigeon and curlews that were present on the marsh. When we climbed up onto the sea wall overlooking the Humber the tide was fully in with no mud for feeding waders and ducks. As we made our way along the bank towards the outfall of the Skitter Beck we noticed far more birds singing and making their presence known; spring is here. We heard a chiffchaff and skylarks were singing constantly. Several Cetti's warrblers were present evidenced by their very loud explosive calls. Good to hear; we hadn't heard them during the winter despite them being resident.
When we reached the Skitter there was some exposed mud and while we enjoyed our tomato soup and Christmas cake we were able to watch dunlin, redshank, little egret and shelduck. A few meadow pipits joined the skylarks; I love to see them fly up and then parachute down singing as they descend. On our walk we had seen my first coltsfoot and lesser celendines in flower.
We were well pleased with our 41 species and revelled in the warm spring weather.
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