It still doesn’t feel too much like spring here at Langford with the odd short spell of warm sunshine, but the predominant weather over the last few weeks has still been cold, windy and at times, snowy! However despite this, we have seen our first migrants in from Africa, with sand martins arriving on site on the 14th March. It is always very welcome to see them darting over the reedbeds, feeding on the first flying insects of the season and their twittering calls are a real sound of the approaching spring. We are currently working on preparing our new sand martin bank – watch this space for details soon – so fingers crossed for a successful breeding season for the birds.
Chiffchaffs have been in good voice too in the last week, with 2-3 birds singing on the Cromwell Trail. Plenty of species are now holding territory and can be heard singing across the site. At this time of year, some of the most obvious are Cetti’s warblers, reed buntings and song thrushes, with the remainder of the warblers yet to arrive. A great spotted woodpecker drumming in the woodland on Wednesday (21st) was great to hear.
The short spells of warmer weather unfortunately haven’t yet brought with them any butterfly sightings, but a large queen Bombus terrestris (bumblebee) was flying around in the sunshine last Friday looking for somewhere to nest.
The Beast from the East has brought in some unusual birds onto site too, with very brief and/or flyover visits from both barnacle and brent geese, Iceland gull and bar-tailed godwit. The weather also brought in 23 dunlin, by far the largest number ever seen here.
In the next month, look out for more migrants as we would expect to see the first passage wheatears very soon and welcome back more of our migrant breeders, blackcap probably being the next to arrive.