A few warm days have encouraged more people to get out and about, and they've been seeing birds on the move, both long-distance migrants and local residents moving to breeding territories.
Six goosanders were on Drayton Lagoon on Thursday; two green sandpipers and a shelduck flew over this morning. The first oystercatchers and ringed plovers have returned to the spots where breeding was recorded here last year. Yellowhammers are singing from bushes on our boundaries with farmland, and reed buntings are singing around all the reedbed areas. Several spots now host singing Cetti's warblers. A bittern has been "tuning up" in recent days - not quite a full boom yet, but the voice is getting stronger by the day.
A drake and two red-headed smews were again in the south-western corner of Elney Lake on Friday morning.