Spring creeps in!

Is it me or is spring a little slower coming this year? I thought I'd make use of the power of my Bird Journal to do a little comparison study of the more common migrants seen on my patches.

Species	Soham Lode Patch		Burwell and Barker’s Fen Patch
Whitethroat	02/05/2015	18/4/2016	14/04/2015	25/04/2016
Swallow	07/05/2015	17/04/2016	24/04/2015	15/04/2016
Sand Martin	None Recorded	None as yet	09/05/2015	15/04/2016
House Martin	None Recorded	22/04/2016	09/05/2016	15/04/2016
Swift	07/05/2015	5/05/2016	07/05/2015	25/04/2016
Cuckoo	3/05/2015	2/05/2016	26/05/2015	25/04/2016
Willow Warbler	02/05/2015	None as yet	06/05/2015	25/04/2016
Garden Warbler	02/05/2015	18/04/2016	01/05/2015	None as yet

The arrival of the Swallows, Sand and House Martin was particularly impressive on the 15th of this month. The day had started with rain and wind. Around 3pm there was a brief window of good weather and so we made for Burwell Fen. On arriving all seemed fairly quiet but after a while there was a noticeable build up of dark clouds and increasing wind from the south east and with it came the swallows etc. for 40 minutes or so they came through swooping over the reed beds and many resting of the reeds.

Good to find a pair of Garganey present on the 15th :

Also putting in an appearance were three Arctic Tern and a couple of Short Eared Owl for good measure!

18th April

Two pairs of Garganey present this afternoon and seven Marsh Harriers (4 female/Juv)

Santon Warren: 13th April

A really pleasant morning for a wonder around this brilliant location. The dogs and I went out for an hours walk and came back three hours later. Plenty of Tree Pipit, Woodlark, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff around:

A walk along the river produced three Mandarin Duck, two males and a single female: