As winter now finally seems to have eased we are starting to catch up on things that we have not been able to do with the ground either covered in snow or under water. The main task is to get the key wader breeding areas ready for the season - normally we would try and do this in late February but we decided that cutting under snow probably would not be very helpful so we delayed until this week.

So yesterday was D Day with all hands to the pumps so to speak to get everything done double quick as the first lapwings are starting to display. During the winter our topper has been fully serviced and all the little problems with it ironed out by the suppliers.

Having fueled up and got everything ready for the off I drove the topper round to a small area - about 50m by 10m just to check that it was all working properly before moving onto the larger blocks. I was slightly annoyed to find that after ten minutes the belts had gone and the topper was no longer working, I then had a very calm and polite phone call with the supplier expressing my feelings about the kit that he had supplied and the manner in which it was serviced. I am now awaiting a call back latter today with their solution as to how they are goning to fix the machin so that I can use it for the rest of this week, watch this space.

On the bird front its amazing how certain species are so predictable. For the last three or four years we have had the first mediteranean and lesser black backed gulls of the season on the same day between 9th and 15th March and sure enough 9th March both species turned up on the pools in front of the visitor centre. We have also had a few ringed plovers moving through which has taken our year list to 118.

Dom