Charles and Camilla have cemented their relationship by doing what swans do at this time of the year, start the family process.

Mute swans have a practiced routine they go through before mating. It is called mirroring and can go on for 10 to 15 minutes. They basically copy each others actions. Here are some examples seen today.

Then once they have gone through their routine they mate, this is very quick process, probably lasting less than 30 seconds.

Once this is finished they then have a very sweet little routing where they bump chests, sing a little song to each other, and have the equivalent of a little cuddle together.

They will go through this routine every day for 7-10 days and then turn to nest building, egg laying and ultimately a family (we hope). You can see below they have already started the nest.

In the sun yesterday I had quite a few butterfly sightings, which was nice to see. Our Peacock butterflies have been around for about a week:-

Yesterday I saw some of our Small Tortoiseshells for the first time:-

Spring is definitely well on its way, hurrah!

Joan and Brian Kirkpatrick kindly donated a couple of crab apple trees and asked me to find a place for them.

I had just the place for them and with Joan’s help we planted them a few days ago.

I decided it would be worth making a little feature, so with the help of Charlie and Augustine ( a couple of my younger volunteers) we set to work.

Maybe a little planting round the border to finish things off but I’m happy. I hope Joan and Brian are too, they haven’t been shown yet!

My thanks to the person who kindly left a gift at the entrance of the reserve.

A crocheted Worry Worm, I didn’t know these were a thing!

Hopefully my worries are now sorted😁

Just the day after seeing our Little Grebe munching on my Newt population, I found a Grey Heron also indulging itself on my newts. Hopefully we have enough to go around!

I was watching our pair of Little Grebes feeding on the pond, at first I thought one had brought up some pond weed but on closer examination it turned out to be a newt!

Once caught it was then a process of shaking the life out of it.

It looks like this may be a Palmate newt rather than Smooth newt as Palmate newts do not have spots on their throats whereas Smooth newts do.

While sitting quietly in the woods this pair came wandering past, they came up to within 6 metres before they saw me and trotted off. I always find it an uplifting experience when you see these animals up close.

As you can see the buck has recently grown his new set of antlers (the old ones he shed in November) and they are still covered with velvet. This he will rub off over the next few weeks.

A little bit of sun and warmth and our frogs and toads have been out and about and producing spawn.

This large female toad has two males hanging on for dear life. She was sitting on the path near a pond, good job I was on foot rather than in my buggy or there would have been three flat toads!

There seems to be a fair batch of frog spawn on Woggle water pond, so I will be doing the same as last year, and putting a batch in my aquarium. We will release the froglets, when they appear, back into the same pond.

I spotted this little (or not so little, about 2cm long) chap sunning itself in the pond. It is a Greater Water Boatman.

I thought I’d share a few pictures, taken over the last few days, of our feathered visitors (and residents).