As the metrological office has decided that Spring begins tomorrow and today's weather was so spring like we decided for a walk round one of our oldest local patches. I have been doing bird counts and surveys on this patch ever since we moved to the flat over 40 years ago so we know it fairly well by now. It is prone to flooding from the local river Ure but had dried out fairly well with the sun and wind of the last few days. Along one hedge near a mobile home site we had both House and Tree Sparrows taking advantage of the feeders as well as Chaffinch, Blue Tit and Great Tit.Tree Sparrows and Chaffinch are fairly rare on our little patch so it was nice to see them. Along the Green Lane we had Sparrowhawk chasing, and missing, Dunnocks and Long Tailed Tits which were far too agile for the Hawk. After visiting a pond behind the golf course we headed for home along the river which seemed to have changed course a little over the winter and the bank where Sand Martins nest has been washed away, hopefully they will find another nest site this year. A pond not fat from home seemed full of birds today with good number of Teal and Coot, an odd manky Mallard seemed to have returned to join the real Mallard and to top it off we had 2 Little Egrets. A great afternoon out, a bit muddy in places but we feel so lucky to have these little gems so n ear to home.