The other day, I thought it felt like spring. Today has definitely been a summer's day.
There weren't many people about today - was it too hot for them ? - but visitors still managed to record 80 bird species. The last one added to the list was a black tern, found flying and feeding with our common terns. Our first scarce chaser dragonfly of 2010 was found today too.
Searching the edges of the lakes, you can now find families with small babies, particularly coots and mallards. During the week, our first great crested grebe chicks were found, riding their parent's back on Oxholme Lake. Only the stripey heads were visible, but the world must have looked big and scarey, as they kept disappearing underneth a sheltering wing.
There are lapwing chicks running around in the grassland areas, and ringed and little ringed plovers and oystercatchers have chicks too, but they require luck and patient watching to find. Goslings are easier to spot - the oldest ones hatched at Easter, and are now quite big.
Family parties of long-tailed tits can now be found in the hedges, and newly fledged blackbirds under them, begging their parents for more food.
As for the noisy birds, they include sedge warblers and Cetti's warblers, trying to be louder than all the others, common terns screeching as they commute between the lakes, and a bittern, booming throughout today.