Friday 16 March 2012

Spring? or Winter?

Its certainly been a bit of both in Leicestershire recently and today was quite difficult to put into a Spring/Winter category as it was undoubtedly a bit of both. Take my trip down to Jubilee Park for example this afternoon:
- Freezing cold, winter?
- Chiffchaff singing, spring?
-Two Goosanders on the Sence, winter?
-Two Oystercatchers near the gravel test pool, spring?
-40ish Wigeon grazing in the fields, winter?
-Berk in a kayak that flushed my Goosander, spring? 

Endlessly confusing.




One good thing about all this warm(ish) weather recently is the frogs kicking into life in the garden pond. Last weekend (when the two photos below were taken) the temperature was much milder and the pond was a hive of activity with about 30 frogs jostling for a spot to lay their eggs:




But all this recent frog activity has also brought in a couple of opportunists;


This happens most years with the Crows often tending to try and eat the frogs themselves rather than the eggs but this morning this pair were definately egg hunting.

5 comments:

  1. Still feels like winter to me. Not quite time for me to emerge from hibernation anyway! Although there was a Wheatear at RW today, spring can't be far off.

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  2. Brrr - freezing at WCPS this afternoon.

    Feck - Oystercatcher - patch tick for me - gripped.

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  3. Yes im leaning towards winter, fake spring last week got my hopes up but its definately still bloody cold!
    And the oysterfiends have been around for a while now so I gather so Skev you should be able to catch up with them relatviely easily!

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  4. I'll be looking tomorrow. To be fair, I would get a lot more patch ticks if I ever bothered to actually go there .....

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  5. Yes im completely the same, I think today was the first visit since mid january for me!

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