Hurrah, the first lapwing chicks of this year have hatched with a brood of four on the lowland wet grassland. Although I hate to say it we could do with some rain to make the ground nice and soft so that the chicks and adults can feed more easily in the drier fields (we have had no rain for over a month but we still have plenty of wetter areas having raised the water-levels through the winter period). The first large red damselflies are starting to emerge with loads of butterflies around too; orange tips seem particularly numerous this year with plenty of lady's smock flowers for the caterpillars. The bluebells are not quite out yet; it has been a late year for most flowers following the very cold spell in February but in a week or so the woods will look gorgeous with blue adding to the white of both wood anemone and wood sorrel mixing with the pale yellow promroses and bright yellow celandines.
The first swift was seen this morning with the first reed warbler singing amongst the reeds (too well hidden to see). Other new arrivals over the last few days include wood warbler and sedge warbler with the first cuckoo heard yesterday. Rather quiet today on the estuary with only a few curlew, oystercatcher and redshank but the woods more than make up for it with redstarts and pied flycatchers everywhere.