Earliest Swallow

On the 22nd March whilst driving down the M6 at Preston a Swallow flew across the road in front of my car. It was the earliest Swallow I have ever recorded by at least a week and heralded the arrival of a fantastic week of Summer weather with temperatures of over 20°C each day. There has been an explosion of butterflies with 5 Peacock, 4 Small Tortoiseshell and one Comma, all seen on Hopwood in one day.

During the week I have filmed a Kingfisher digging its tunnel and a pair of Long Tailed Tits lining their nest with feathers. (Photo next week) Normally they seek out white feathers for their nest and will readily take any that I put out for them. This time they picked them up but instead of taking them back to the nest they disposed of them away from the nest. I had obviously found the only pair of Long Tailed Tits that did not like white feathers!

Whilst the warm weather has produced very early foliage it was in fact too hot for basking Adders and my first visit of the season produced no sightings. More disappointing though has been the disappearance of two of my regular pairs of Long Eared Owls – does this mean there is a shortage of voles this year.