Spring -At Last

What a difference a few warm, sunny days have made to the vegetation and the numbers of migrants arriving. In Bowland, where this weeks blog photo was taken, there were Redstarts and Pied Flycatchers singing in the woodlands along the River Hodder with quite a few Common Sandpipers on the river. Swallows were back in the farm-yards with Wheatears in the fields. Click here
The best of the week was reserved for the Pennine hills with Merlin back in their breeding valley and a Short-Eared Owl wing-clapping over the open moor.
On the 20th I was treated to a twenty minute encounter with a Cuckoo and watched it as it continually dropped to the ground and flew up with a caterpillar in its bill. It was my first local sighting of a Cuckoo in more than ten years.