Twelve tufted duck on Tonford Lake on 10th were my only records of what is essentially a winter visitor to Hambrook, and the pair of great crested grebes also seem to have departed.
Spring is on the way and drake mallard are getting decidedly amorous. One mounted and mercilessly grabbed the neck of an uncooperative female who was shepherding her twelve ducklings until she finally relented and allowed him his five seconds of gratification. Satisfied, he jumped down and rejoined his “mate”, who I only then realised had been watching the proceedings from a distance. Quite what she thought of his behaviour we can only surmise.
I optimistically featured a swallow as the banner photo on page one, but a group of six of these so-called harbingers of spring on 10th are the only ones I have so far seen on the Marshes. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in south west Scotland where, on a recent visit to the Dumfries area, I found them to be plentiful, hawking over every field, and exploring farm buildings for potential nest sites. Similarly, the cuckoo is very much a bird of memory now, with just a single record this year of a very distant 3 individual in the Chartham area. As recently as ten years ago I could expect to hear one or more birds on nearly every morning visit to the Marshes in late April and May.
A willow warbler was singing just off the marshes on 26th, close to the Tonford railway crossing, so I was dismayed on my next visit to see that the abandoned orchard it haunted had been grubbed up. At least that other summer warbler, the whitethroat, reappeared on 19th.
Other sightings during the month included a buzzard on 19th, my first record since November last year, a pheasant that hadn’t been heard crowing since March 2023, and a pair of bullfinches, the first since April 2024. Two greylag geese landed on the river briefly, and one morning a pair of jays were inquisitively inspecting one of the new hibernacula that have been built as winter retreats for lizards and slow worms.