March 2014
Signs of spring are all around! Today (16th February) was probably the best day we have had for weather for about two months! We had almost wall to wall sunshine with a few fair weather cumulus clouds, and hardly a breeze. Last night there was a chorus of frogs in my pond, and this morning there were several clumps of spawn to add to the clump that appeared a few days ago. This morning as I pruned a hornbeam tree in my garden, I spotted three common buzzards soaring a thermal in the sky above my house. Earlier, a blue tit was sussing out a nest-box on one of my oak trees. I saw several celandines in flower today to add to crocuses and daffodils also seen.
Yesterday I saw hawthorn leaves breaking bud and heard a great-spotted woodpecker hammering in Nightingale Wood. Today I visited Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, and among the groups of herring and lesser black-backed gulls I saw black-headed gulls with black heads, which they only develop when getting ready for the breeding season in the spring. Many spring plants are pushing through. The Alexanders has been bushing up for some time, and its relative, cow parsley is already carpeting some woodland floors. Birds singing on territory include blue tit, song thrush, blackbird and mistle thrush. Chaffinches are also singing on territory with the full song. They take time to develop their song in the spring, but they have developed early this year. House sparrows are eagerly cheeping and chasing each other through garden hedge-rows. Almost every living thing was delighting in the good weather today.
Meanwhile, in the lagoons of Rye Harbour, I was delighted to see about 100 golden plover, and similar numbers of grey plover and lapwing. There were little grebes and tufted ducks diving under the water for food, and flocks of dunlin flying around changing colour as they changed direction again and again just for the joy of living. There were dozens of oyster catchers and curlews loafing on the islands and giving their occasional ethereal call, and redshank calling as if they were telling someone off for being there. Then to my delight towards the end of my visit, I saw three gadwall ducks, two males with their black bottoms and one female (all brown). This scarcely seen duck is beginning to breed in Sussex in recent years, but used to be mainly a winter visitor. But its breeding stronghold is Rye Bay.