Wednesday 14th. March 2012

Another grey , cold start to the day . Unsure of what the weather was going to do , I did a few jobs around the garden , all the time with one eye on the sky . I did have a couple of interesting moments ,

with at least three visits to the Callicarpa bush by the male Blackcap , once again through double glazing . Both he and the female are very nervous when they come in to feed , just a Chaffinch lying past will spook them . I also spotted a female House Sparrow in the Laburnum tree next door , perhaps she was interested in the communal boxes I put up last year , here's hoping . Just before lunch I thought Carol had played a practical joke , when I saw a Grey Heron standing on the side of

the pond , which now contains a good amount of frogspawn . But it wasn't a joke , it was for real . It probably followed me back from Kelsey Park . A split second after this shot , it saw me at the back bedroom window , and was gone . Shortly after lunch , the sky started to lighten from the South and eventually hazy sunshine came through . By this time , I was half way to the Greensand Ridge , for a bit of reptiling . Even though the sun was showing , the temperature had only just climbed into double figures on my arrival , kept down by a cool breeze . The first half hour failed to find a single

reptile , but it did produce my first flowering Bluebells of the year , very close to where I had last year's first ones . A while later , on a sunny bank , covered with the remains of last year's Bracken , I

found two large male Adders . One curled up in a sunny depression , and the other , moving at speed

across the ground in front of me . They proved however , to be the only reptiles found on the visit . As I started home , I spotted two large birds , riding the thermals at the bottom of the Ridge , and

decided to head in their direction . As suspected , they turned out to be Common Buzzards , and very close to the nest where two young were fledged last year . Annoyingly , they never came really close

together , so most of the shots I got were of one bird or the other , but still a nice way to finish the visit . I stopped briefly up on the Common to check on the second LTTit nest , and it would appear

that the pair have passed the doming operation with flying colours . And finally , a stop on the bottom lane , revealed eight nest in the Rookery , which is 2 or 3 up on last years count , and

needless to say , it's getting noisy .