For want of a better title...
Today I do have the sightings from the book and have a new source! Thanks go to Gerald for sending me a pic of the book and a photo which shows that spring is definitely on the way.
From Gerald, blackthorn starting to flower. Blackthorn has flowers before leaves and hawthorn is the opposite.
Some new news today comes via Keith Saunders and Twitter - he told us of a brambling in the tree sparrow farm and of a curlew and 2 oystercatchers on the field pools. Thanks Keith. The Barnsley Birders followed this up by saying that it was a male brambling.
Other sightings from the Barnsley Birders today were of a booming bittern, 2 shelduck, one black tailed godwit, 6 oycs, 2 med gulls and 4 sand martin.
More new news, this time from Bolton and John Seeviour. He tweeted the current regular sightings from here today with the addition of 2 sand martin and the marsh tit again. Thanks John.
Other Twitter news is that the common scoter was again at Manvers today - this lake is further down the bypass from Old Moor on the left.
On Wath Ings today were shovelor, tufted duck, 2 pairs of goldeneye, black headed gulls, coots, cormorants and mute swans.
On the Wader Scrape we had lots of those noisy black headed gulls, 2 goosander, 2 lesser black backed gull, the black tailed godwit and a redshank.
From the field pools today came sightings of a curlew, a med gull, shovelor, a juv herring gull, the black tailed godwit and a little grebe.
A chiffchaff was 'chiffchaffing' away on Green Lane and from the Family Hide we had sightings of 2 med gull (one possibly the one from the field pools) and 16 cormorant.
2 buzzards were seen flying over Bolton Tip.
Next to the Bittern Hide where I'm delighted to say that we now have two great crested grebes who are displaying and showing signs of nesting... fingers crossed for stripey chicks!
More sand martin news is of 12+ of them flying and feeding over the water in front of the reedbed hide. Also here today were tufted duck, shovelor and little grebes. A booming bittern was also heard from here today.
I'll finish with a few photos...
Another sign of spring is the frogspawn in the little raised pond. Look out for tadpoles in the future.
Cafe news is that hot meals have returned to some extent. There are now 2 hot meals every day, one veggie, one not as well as all the other lovely offerings. This was the menu last Sunday.
Finally for today, we have lots of events for children over the Easter holidays. Here's the board with some of them.
Enjoy your tea :)