Michael Walter, the former Warden, has written the following about the cold weather during the spring. Since he wrote this, a couple of weeks ago, a cuckoo is reported to have been heard in Church Wood, but I would welcome news of any other migratory birds that have been seen or heard:
"Have you heard a cuckoo yet, or a turtle dove? Both species seem to be absent from Blean Woods and many of the other birds that have made it to Blean have arrived in greatly reduced numbers, so the wood seems remarkably quiet, even first thing in the morning. At least part of the reason for this silent spring is likely to lie with the appalling weather earlier in the year, with birds possibly dying at the end of winter, failing to complete their migration or arriving incredibly late. March really excelled itself for breaking records, as the graph below shows with great clarity. This charts the mean maximum temperature each March since I began recording at Blean in 1982, and there is a suggestion of a gradual warming during that period as the mean inched up from around 10°C in the early 1980s to nearer 12°C in the 2000s. So what happened this spring was truly exceptional and spectacular, with the mean maximum temperature for March plummeting to just 3.8°C, the technical term for this being 'falling off a cliff'!"