March 2014

Well thank goodness the floods have gone! In the photo attached, the public footpath is about three feet under water and indistinguisable from the river adjacent. This was due to a combination of heavy rain and high spring tides forcing seawater up river into the reserve...we spent an age taking out all the plastic rubbish that came in with it after the water receeded. March has started quietly on the migration-front. Our first Sand Martins(3) didn't arrive until 9th and our only Swallow to date has been a single bird on 12th which coincided with our first Wheatear of the spring. Chiffchaffs have been trickling in throughout the month and have included a couple of grey Siberian races. The adders are out with about three seen so far and at last the Grey Herons have started to nest in the reedbeds - a couple of weeks later than normal. We still have 1-2 Bitterns here but time is getting on and as they have yet to breed in Cornwall we are not holding our breath. With the warmer weather and change to south-easterly winds as usually happens at some point anytime now, we are hoping for spring migrants to start arriving en masse.