It's not snowed for at least a week now and the singing willow warbler that greeted me on the 18th, the first warbler of the year, was both music to my ears and marked the arrival of spring here at Longhaven. Hopefully this will also mark the end of the long drag which is typically the first three months of the year. Daily plodding around the patch producing few birds and very little of note, indeed there's been no bonus birds the last couple of months with just the regulars trickling onto the score sheet. March produced 13 patch ticks for the year (11% of my annual target) which is the highest March total ever but was just making up for the lower than normal January and February tallies. There weren't any highlights last month but I guess if there had to be one it would be stock dove, which are annual on patch but always tricky.
April so far hasn't, as yet, picked up the pace with just six species added to the tally but at least the weather is nicer and May is just around the corner when I'm hoping for an explosion in both totals and rares.
Things are going to have to get better if there's any chance of keeping up with those Irish lads who both seem to be having a good time of things lately and well done to them for their cracking finds.
Currently on 65 species for the year, 54.17% of the total; which is pretty much bang on average.
Happy days
Bushveld.
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