The ultimate challenge in springtime is to find a Woodcock incubating eggs. The camouflage when it lays them amongst leaves and bracken is superb as is shown by this weeks sitting  female. She laid her eggs on or about the 20th March which is exceptionally early and means she had to sit through two periods of snow! In more than fifty years of searching for Woodcock nests this nest is only the 13th that I have seen – it is the greatest Pennine challenge in springtime and becomes harder each year as the Woodcock has declined by more than fifty percent in the last twenty years.
Since last weeks blog on Goosanders ten were present on our local canal three days ago and this is certainly a local record.

During the last fifty years Goosanders have increased in number and are now seen almost daily on our local canal. The female lays up to a dozen eggs in hollow trees and only leaves them to feed twice a day, usually in the company of the male. Her eggs take four weeks to hatch and the first young are normally seen in early May. As this years breeding season is generally a late one you can imagine the surprise of finding a female on a Lancashire river with a dozen young on the 20th March. click here
Most of our summer visitors are now here with Redstart and Pied Flycatcher arriving in Lancashire yesterday(with snow overnight!). Whether we see or hear any Cuckoos remains to be seen.

Today is the last day of March and snow has only just cleared from the Pennine hills. The heaviest fall of snow this winter was on the 4th March when five inches fell in less than four hours. I was in the unique position of being able to observe roosting Long Eared Owls and how they coped with a severe blizzard. The snow would accumulate on their backs and heads and then every few minutes they would shake it off vigorously and then wait for it to accumulate again. Todays photo illustrates the terrible conditions that they had to endure. If you look carefully you can even see the ice on the ear tuft making it wilt. The gallery includes other photos taken during the blizzard. click here

There is little doubt that the most exquisite nest of any British bird is that of the Long Tailed Tit. In early March the dome of the nest is constructed and then by the end of March the search is on for feathers to line it. It takes up to ten days to line the nest with as many as two thousand feathers. They particularly like white feathers and some distance is covered during their search for these feathers. I have found five nests this week and the blog and gallery photos rate from one of these pairs. click here

On the 14th March the sunshine brought out of hibernation my first male Adder of the year. During the last week i have seen flocks of Fieldfares and Redwings but only thirty of each which makes it the poorest season ever for these traditional winter migrants.

Fifty years ago I visited Iceland for the first time and it made such an impression on me that it seemed the appropriate place to visit to celebrate my 70th birthday last week-end. We were treated to blizzards, gale force winds but no Northern Lights even so it was a delight to see it in Winter.

I expected that the harbour in Reykjavik would be full of Arctic gulls and while we only saw two Glaucous Gulls there were on some days more than a hundred Iceland Gulls present. Also present in good numbers were Eider Ducks, Long Tailed Ducks, Black Guillemots, Fulmars and even Blue-phase Fulmars.

The lakes in Reykjavik were mainly frozen except for one geothermal heated corner which had 50 Whooper Swans that had stayed in Iceland rather than flying to Britain in Autumn. Surprisingly these included a pair with their four young who may never know how to migrate!

A full day Golden Circle tour showed us Pingvellir, Stroker and Gullfoss waterfall all in deep snow and ice. It was dramatic scenery but the only birds seen were thirty plus Redpolls feeding in the warmth of a geothermal spring. Click here

An evocative name for the Icelandic Great Northern Diver. We have just returned from an extended week-end in Iceland to celebrate my 70th Birthday and not one Himbrimi was seen. The reason,of course is that they have all migrated south to the British Isles for winter and one young bird has already spent many weeks at Salford Quays. Now I never regard myself as a twitcher but a local Great Northern Diver, even if it was a first winter bird, was too much to resist. This weeks blog and gallery are of this magnificent bird and I had a rewarding three hours watching Himbrimi. It was interesting to note that any alarm calls from the Gulls on the Quays brought an instant reaction of fear from the Diver as would have happened on its breeding grounds in Iceland. Click here
Next weeks gallery will includes photos from our recent visit to Iceland.