It was a beautiful morning when I parked at St Michael's Church on the outskirts of Grimsby by the River Freshney. Jet was keen to be off on his walk and we crossed the main road onto the banks of the Fresney. We quickly lost the sound of the traffic and the only noise was that of bird song. We are very lucky to have the Freshney on our doorstep as it is one of the UK's rare chalk streams with crystal clear water, water voles, kingfisher and, although I have yet to see one, otter. It rises on the springline of the rolling hills of the Lincolnshire Wolds at Welbeck Springs by Welbeck Hill at the south west of the map sheet. It flows at first north east and then quickly to the north, flowing through the edge of the village of Laceby as the Laceby Beck. It then flows north east again, becoming the River Freshney as it enters the outskirts of Grimsby, passes under the main road at Little Coates, finally turning south east to flow through the West Marsh area of town before entering the Humber Estuary via Grimsby dock. Chalk streams are a priority habitat for conservation and enhancement in both the UK and the Lincolnshire Biodiversity Action Plans.
As Jet and I made our way along the river it wasn't long before I heard my first chiffchaff, largely a summer migrant to our shores after overwintering in Africa. During the walk I heard and saw five in total; definite signs of spring. Another harbinger of spring and summer was the comma butterfly found later during our walk. Butterflies have been slow to get going locally and this was only my second of the year. A friend who puts out a moth trap has only had a single Hebrew Character moth in his trap so far this year.
I was pleased to hear the repeated phrases of a song thrush's song and the churring of wrens. Cetti's warblers were also calling loudly. These plain brown songsters are here all the year round but have only just started singing with the onset of the warmer weather.
Town's Holt is an area of reed bed and lagoons adjacent to the beck and forms part of Freshney Bog which was constructed in 2001 as a washland, which could be used to hold excess water when the channel below it could not cope with the flow in the river. It is a major part of the flood defence system for Grimsby. The flooding of the area killed the trees that once grew there and the dead skeltons rise above the reeds and are ideal perches for cormorants and gulls. As I walked along the bank of the Freshney next to the Holt I was able to photograph a heron waiting, statue-like, for prey to pass by and also cormorants on the dead trees. Zooming into the cormorant photo shows the bird's brilliant blue eye to perfection. I had a brief glimpse of a kingfisher here as it zipped across the lagoon.
Eventually I left the houses of Laceby Acres behind and walked out onto open fields and immediatley could hear skylarks singing - magical. On the way back to the car I heard a great spotted woodpecker drumming, a buzzard drifted over and I heard a little grebe 'laughing' from the reed bed. It had been a perfect morning and in all I saw 31 bird species, one butterfly, busy buff-tailed bumble bees and my first cherry plum blossom.
