It's not quite Valentine's Day but many birds were singing this morning at Langford Lowfields and species heard were skylark, yellowhammer, chaffinch, song thrush, robin, dunnock, great tit, reed bunting and Cetti's warbler. Soon more species will join in this chorus of 'love' as males start to defend a territory and hope to attract a mate.
There was a feel of spring once the sun emerged from behind the earlier cloud cover and a sense of the natural world re-awakening and on the move. There are fresh catkins on sallows, hazels, birches and alders, and several clumps of snowdrops are in flower in the wood. Throughout the morning there was a steady passage of small numbers of black-headed gulls flying overhead and flocks of lapwings. Two dunlins had tagged onto a lapwing flock and I presumably saw the same birds feeding with lapwings at Girton Gravel Pits to the north later in the day. An oystercatcher flew down onto Phase 2 calling noisily - a sign of spring approaching because they are rare in the Trent Valley in winter.
I walked around the southern perimeter of the reserve first, following the Sustrans route and footpaths. There were good numbers of small birds about - a flock of about 50 reed buntings, about 20 each of yellowhammers, linnets and chaffinches, and a few golfinches and greenfinces feeding in a weedy field. Two siskins flew over calling and a green sandpiper flew up from Phase 3. On Phase 2 there were three little egrets, two shelducks, two smart male shovelers and a redshank was heard calling. The reedbed was quiet except for the brief burst of the Cetti's warbler's song. Nine bramblings were feeding on the ground below the feeders - five males and four females. Walking back a buzzard was circling on the thermals and crying its 'mew' call.