The most wonderful time of the year

It is that wonderful time of the year when spring is really starting to, well spring! The days are getting longer, and after months of cold, dark and let’s face it generally wet weather, things are starting to feel really warm. Daffodils, crocuses and primroses are all sprouting up along road sides and under trees. Verdant green leaves are starting to sprout from dark brown branches, and many have beautiful white or delicate pink blossom that ‘snows’ on to grass, pavements and cars, jostled free by a wind that is keen to remind you that it is only the start of the warm season. 

Spring with the beautiful blossoms

In bright blue skies overhead, racing the white clouds, come the calls of swallows just returning from Africa. From the developing cover of hedgerows, bushes and trees, comes the singing of birds, some resident and almost relieved to see the warm weather, some having only just arrived from warmer climes where winter and cold are things of myth. Chiffchaff, blackcap and the twittering of those swallows mingle with the more local birds like robin, wren and a variety of tits. 

Despite being only the start of the season, and with many species not yet returned to our little island, many birds were already well into the swing of breeding. Long-tailed tit nests were springing up, hidden amongst the spikes and thorns of bramble and gorse, lined with soft feathers ready to cradle precious eggs. Blackbirds were even seeing the first of their young leave the nest and call from the cover nearby, still hoping for food from mum and dad. 

A walk along the river, its smooth brown surface dabbled with sunlight, revealed the first few nests of my recording season. Hidden in nooks of branches surrounded by draping, deep green ivy leaves, I find secretive robins. Their mossy nests lined with hair and grass, holding four or five white and spotted reddish brown eggs. Further along and hidden high up in a tree, a blackbird nest reveals two very small chicks, still blind, with just a tuft of fuzzy feathers on the head. 

Robin nest 

At our ringing site, before that wind blew in to try and take back a wintry grip on the spring landscape, the garden was full of finches, with most of the tits squirreled away in the woods laying their clutches of eggs. Greenfinch, siskin and goldfinch made up the bulk of the catch, they themselves showing the turn of the seasons with brood patches in evidence on their tummies. 

Stunning male siskin

And yet it is that time of year where many things are still rather wintery, just like that wind, and mixed with the swallows and nesting birds, you still find redwings and fieldfares, gathering for one last time in paddocks and fields before making their journeys east and north. In the mist nets, side by side with greenfinch that are clearly incubating eggs (you can tell by the stage of the brood patch), are two bramblings; full of fat in readiness to leave for their breeding sites in Norway and Scandinavia. It is that mixture of winter favourites and spring nesting that makes this time of year so wonderful to the ringer and nest recorder. 

Female brambling

A bit of variety

The clouds of varying shades of grey chased each other across the sky. The sun played hide and seek with the patches of bright blue in between. April showers swept across the trees, spiky hedges and opaque polytunnels of the farm. Finally things were starting to look green, tiny leaves covered by bare skeletal branches of the hedges, pale pink and white blossoms covered the trees. Bird song filled the air; busily they dart from hedge to grass to tree and back, disappearing into secret corners where their nests are hidden.

Dodging the showers the nets were up, but as always the question was what would we catch? This may always be the question on every ringers mind, but at this time of year for us it’s even more so. Things are in a state of flux, winter migrants are or have left for their breeding grounds, summer birds are returning but not all are back yet. Residents are spreading out through the countryside, setting up and maintaining breeding territories.

Plenty of lesser redpolls still moving through at the farm

The result? Well the star of the winter show, the brambling, seem to have left, but there are still  plenty of redpolls having their last fill before heading north. Plenty of siskins add their green and gold to the feeders, some piling on the fat reserves ready to leave, while others are already into the full swing of breeding. 

Female siskin - some had brood patches
others were piling on fat ready to leave

Female chaffinch, greenfinch, great tit, goldfinch, siskin and robin all show evidence that breeding is underway, the feathers on their breast have been dropped and the skin engorged ready for incubating eggs.

Summer migrants have also made an appearance; swallows recently returned from Africa, dip and dive over the cottage roof, while in the net we catch a female blackcap.

Female blackcap (with her brown cap!)

Added to the mix were nuthatch, coal tit, blue tit and even a female great spotted woodpecker, her all black head setting her apart from the males of the species.

As the horizon darkens ominously, promising more than a light sprinkling, it is time to close up. The nets are safely wrapped up, the kit is tidied and stowed away. As large, heavy rain drops start to patter against the roof of the polytunnel we leave the birds to find shelter for themselves and head home for a well earned bacon and egg sarnie.