Spring in the Local Patch - Mid March - Late May

My local patch doesn't have any good habitats like woods or wetlands, its just fields like most of the countryside. There are no nature reserves or anywhere managed for nature, this is pure monotorised farmland, countryside as an industrial landscape not some Garden of Eden where man is at one with nature. Its nice walking and close to where I live so I can walk it any time, get back in touch with whatever nature is present and it eases my soul.
In the early Spring, after the first snow storm - the Beast From The East - had finished and escaped from people's memories everything went up a gear as Spring arrived...
Then from nowhere a second snow spell hit us. I went out on the local patch and what was before full of bird song and nesting, was eerily quiet. Nothing. I saw a passage of WOOD PIGEONS, a few REDWING, but the landscape was dead. It was absolutely amazing, terrifying, but amazing. It will forever stay with me that lifelessness in such a fertile time.

The River Meadow encased in snow.

 

But the snow soon disappeared and life began again and Spring arrived in earnest.

 



BLACKTHORN, several weeks late, exploded out overnight.

 

On 27/3 I had a new species for the patch in the form of a COOT on the little pond, I don't really get many water birds present here. The resident flock of GREYLAGS had reduced to one pair, sometimes joined by a pair of CANADAS, the other GREYLAGS maybe casualties of the snow storm. On the 22/5 there was a LITTLE  GREBE on the Reservoir, an occaisional visitor to the area.

 



 

 

There were four singing SONG THRUSHES, from the scrub at the entrance, the River Meadow, the Suffolk Punch Field and the Reservoir. Three YELLOWHAMMERS were singing, from the First Field, the Suffolk Punch Field and Lark Field. A GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER was drumming from the large trees around the pond. There were plenty of SKYLARKS ascending and descending in song flights across the many large arable fields.

The Pond: home to GEESE and birds on the surrounding tall trees.

 

Spring, the season, is all about passage migrants. WINTER THRUSHES moved through in March, joined by a few GOLDCRESTS. BLACKCAP first appeared on the 14/4 much later than usual, you usually expect them back in late March. The first WHITETHROAT appeared on the 27/4 and the first LESSER WHITETHROAT on 3/5 with one singing on the First Field and one in the Suffolk Punch Field. The first Swifts appeared on the 8/5 with the usual pair present flying overhead.

On 19/4 six BUZZARDS were flying over the church, a bird that is very common in the area, but still a good sight.

 

 The Suffolk Punch Field. Unfortunately no Suffolk Punches are present. When I first walked the area, five years ago, I found a sign saying 'do not feed the Suffolk punches' but found no Suffolk Punches, which is a shame.

 



So nothing unusual, but away from all the nature reserves, all the land managed for wildlife, the country is pretty quiet for birds. Wildlife is only a small part of our countryside, even though it is dependent on it. Farming is a business, and those areas that are good for wildlife, those unkempt areas of the land have been destroyed so that as much as possible can be squeezed out of the landscape for profit. The time we go back to working with nature, not against it, will be a great step forward for mankind.