One of my guilty pleasures is the Yorkshire Birds and Birders group on Facebook. This week it has been teasing me with photos of some of the 18 black-necked grebes that are currently at St Aidan's. They must have been feeling camera shy on my visit because I didn't see one. But you might! The word in the Visitor Centre was that the best place to see one is on the corner of Lemonroyd by the Causeway.
Black-necked grebe by Craig Bell
The reserve is a busy place now that spring has got a firm grip on it. Walking towards the reedbeds, the air is full of the song of skylarks. Look out for their fluttering climb to the sky and glide back down to earth. At ground level there are meadow pipits and stonechats aplenty, on both sides of the path.
Meadow pipit
There have been several hares spotted on the Ridge & Furrow, while the Hillside and Pasture is host to a visiting ring ouzel. These thrushes breed away up north in Scotland so the visit may be brief. Little owls are hanging out on the Dragline and blue tits and newly arrived chiffchaffs are adding to the music around the Visitor Centre.
Blue tit - you can see my house from here!
The reedbeds are bursting with black-headed gulls and their raucous chorus. Listen carefully though, and there is the boom of the bitterns to be heard as you walk around. Good luck in spotting one of these shy herons. The RSPB estimates just 80 breeding males in the UK so St Aidan's is honoured to have these. We must treasure them.
Sharing the reedbeds, a bearded tit was spotted on Saturday. These little chaps are really moustached rather than bearded, but I won't split facial hair over a name. Listen out for them as you follow the path.
The path between the Ridge & Furrow and the reedbeds gives plenty of opportunity to see the sparrow-sized reed buntings as they flit and flirt between reeds and willows.
Male reed bunting
Over on the Ridge & Furrow look out for curlew and snipe, lapwings, oystercatchers and black-tailed godwits with their long legs and lance-like beaks. There were whooper swans there on Saturday taking a break on their migration to Iceland. Greylag and canada geese ensure their presence is noticed with their honks and squawks as pairs fly across the park to check out the foraging on the Pasture or for a swim on Astley.
Greylags over Astley
You might have noticed we've had a bit of rain recently. The waters have risen and the Causeway is definitely a place for the water fowl at the moment.
Underwater Causeway
On Lemonroyd, coots, goosanders, moorhens, pochard and tufted ducks are doing their thing. Great crested grebes in ostentatious breeding plumage are to be seen across all of the lakes.
Great crested grebe
Main Lake offers views of beaky shovelers and goldeneye, gadwall, teal and mallards, as well as kittiwakes and little gulls. Over on Bowers, look out for a yellow wagtail and a little ringed plover, and say hello and welcome back to the sand martins.
Astley is busy with cormorants, lapwings, common terns and elegant avocets. The first swallows of the year and a green woodpecker have been seen too so it's worth a walk over there.
Avocet Mick Noble/Swillington Ings Bird Group
Make sure you check the skies for the birds of prey. Regular hunters include kestrels, red kites and buzzards.
It's not just the birds that are full of the joys of spring. Coltsfoot provides splashes of yellow along the verges, and the coconut-scented gorse is blooming.
Sunny coltsfoot
Gorse
Pussy willow is welcomed by insects.
Pussy willow
Hopefully, we've had the last of the cold and wet and things will start to warm up a bit. I'll leave you with another of Craig Bell's excellent black-necked grebe photos.
Does my bum look big in this? Craig Bell