Spring almost arrived
Mar 31st, 2010 by Chris
I did mean to post something on Saturday, but I kind of got distracted. I feel I should record the events of Saturday though, if only so that in future years we can look back and see when it all happened.
So, as reported on Twitter, on Saturday 27th March we saw the first signs of nest building going on in the blue tit nestbox. And it was a blue tit doing the work—we have seen great tits in there earlier and the occasional squabble, but it seems to be the blue tits that have prevailed again. Last year the first nesting was a good bit earlier, on 16th March. But I’m not sure we can really blame the cold winter for this year’s late start as in 2008 it was 26th March.
Saturday was a gorgeous day. We went for our first kayak paddle of the year on the Avon. It was pleasantly warm, and after the rain the previous week the river was full and flowing fast. Not anticipating the warmth I had far too many layers on to be working so hard to get upstream. What a contrast today! It was about 3°C when I got up this morning, and not much warmer when I had a site meeting around lunchtime. Looking at the nestcam now I can’t help wondering if the birds have decided they got it all wrong—they seem to have dragged half the nesting material out again! Let’s hope they return and bring up another brood in the Blue Tit Big Brother House