This morning the ice had at last cleared from the lagoons and the wildfowl had returned to feed on them, skylarks were singing everywhere, tree sparrows taking nesting material into the boxes and our little colony of snow drops had just stared to poke their heads out of the vegetation and begun to bloom, yes all of a sudden its feeling like spring.

Snowdrops in the reedbed along the path to Ousefleet

Interesting fact about snowdrops that I was listening to the other day on the radio, apparently they are stimulated to flower by the cold rather than the warmth, so they suggested that in cold years snowdrops should flower earlier rather than they would in mild years. 

Yesterday though there was a heavy frost which the hares seemed to enjoy in the field next to the reserve

Tree sparrow with nesting material today

Good to see the ice off the lagoons though, it always takes a bit longer here on the Sands and there often needs to be a bit of rain to thin out the ice, it didn't take long though for the wigeon, teal, shelduck, gadwall, greylags and mallard to return to feed. You may however notice that we have less water than usual, this is because we haven't had a good tide this year and this situation is starting to get somewhat worrying as it will unless it a wet summer mean the lagoons will dry out far too early for many of our breeding birds and autumn passage waders. 

Wigeon from this morning, they seemed pretty hungry

Shelduck when we were frozen up

Also nice to have the lapwing and redshank back on site and still a few curlew about this morning, you may have read my last blog about organic content in the soil increasing food availability for this species but this was also demonstrated by the six snipe that were feeding on our recently created Horseshoe meadow during the cold spell. Out on the Trent end of the reserve there has been a few dunlin feeding too with one carrying a white ring with lettering, which has probably been ringed in Poland in the bay of Gadansk. Many dunlin move through here as they are migrating from their arctic breeding grounds.

Redshank at Ousefleet

Curlew yesterday at Ousefleet 

Its certainly been an interesting if not uncertain time for birds of prey on the reserve with during the cold weather the movement of the roost away from Blacktoft out to the safety of Whitton Island, this happened last year when there was cold weather but I suspect also as last year they will return now that its become milder. The marsh harriers and buzzards, still hunt around the reserve in the day and there has been sporadic records of the ringtail hen harrier, peregrine and merlin while there is a good chance of up to three barn owls around the reserve. Good to see too on the way out of Swinefleet a short eared-owl hunting along the roadside and on the way home on Saturday a little owl at Adlingfleet. With mild weather forecast it won't be too long before the marsh harriers start to display and preliminary nest build!  

Barn owl from last week

Even during the cold there were stonechats and water pipits around the reserve with also meadow pipits and pied wagtails feeding around the Koniks. Just a few fieldfare returning to the area now and reed buntings. The Cettis warblers have gone very quiet but this will change while there were a couple of bearded tits over the tops of the reeds at Marshland this morning - however with much of the reedbed dry this year they have mostly been feeding on the ground where there is plenty of invertebrate food and reed seed, its also much safer and helps them avoid roving sparrowhawks and merlins! 

Male stonechat at Ousefleet

Konik and meadow pipit during the freeze -up

Female blackbird - car park 

Confiding dunnock this morning along the paths

Water pipit on a frozen Singleton lagoon

A hungry robins, they both mugged me as I was opening up the gate last week!

And a lovely male bearded tit that Masha found along the river while I was counting wigeon.

It had some lovely pink on its side and rump

Here's a bit of her video - very nice example of how the beardies are feeding low down here on the Humber

And one of her better pictures

Mammal wise there has been plenty of hare and roe deer sightings and the stoat was on the path again this morning.

A few more hare photo's

I'll leave you with a a few memories of the cold weather................. 

Grey partridge in early morning light near to the reserve

Mippit

Its certainly been nice to have a little bit of winter but I suspect unless things change drastically its going to be a pretty early spring