Our Chiff Chaffs arrived a few weeks ago but they have now been joined by Black caps, Willow Warbler and just yesterday I saw my first Swallow of the year over the reserve.

At our regular bird ringing session we caught a beautiful male and female Black Cap.

It will be interesting to see which one of our warblers will be the next to arrive.

Who knew you can buy tadpole food?

Smells like fish food but the tadpoles seem to like it.

They are growing at a rapid rate and seem to be doing well in their tank.

Two days ago I made the decision to remove the last remaining cygnet from last years brood. Don’t worry the removal was a transfer from the Dunces Corner Pond to Woggle Water Pond.

The reason for this is related to my last blog ‘Swan news’, the parents were preparing for a new family and as such were giving last years cygnet a hard time. She has a damaged wing and I do not think at the moment she can fly. The hope is when she moults her juvenile feathers and gains her adult feathers she may be able to fly.

As you can see below she seems to be fit and well apart from her dodgy left wing.

Charles and Camilla have started a new family, yes we have a nest and some Easter eggs!

The first egg appeared yesterday and as you can see we now have three, maybe more to come over the next couple of days. Last year there were seven eggs of which five hatched, so I do expect more to come.

Thank you to John K. for using his drone to get this picture.

Many thanks to my neighbours Roy and Christine for donating a large fish tank ( and their sons for helping relocate it).

The plan is to put some of our frog spawn in the tank and our visiting school kids will be able to watch it develop over the coming weeks.

I will update when the new residents move in.

A Christmas present from Libby gave me the opportunity to experiment! The gift was a carved head bird feeder, as we have lots of feeders I decided to convert it into a bird box. It will be interesting to see if our feathered friends will use it this year.

Our latest bird ringing session led to the capture of this handsome chap, a very fine looking male Sparrow hawk.

When you see the talons up close you can see how they are such good killers!

My latest project is to clean, repair and relocate 35 of my 100 bird boxes. Nesting season is fast approaching so it needs to be done in the next week.

Some of the issues that I have had to deal with:-

I also was the recipient of 30 new bird boxes, thank you to Caroline for helping organise this donation.

These will be located in our new section of the reserve, hopefully our feathered friends will approve. This brings our site bird box total to 135.

Here are some of the feathered visitors caught on camera so far this year:-

Well the little bit of sun and a dry day has brought out the frogs on the bog. Woggle water pond was awash with our croaking little friends, so I am expecting a bumper crop of frog spawn this year!

Best play the video on full volume, then tune in to the frogs chorus.