Spring down by the river

It has been glorious weather all week and many trees are now coming into leaf. On my usual dog walk I have been hearing and seeing skylarks for a while now, and although Bury meadows can get busy with walkers the skylarks are fortunately still there, although the meadow pipits have now left.

On days like today, with the river still and reflecting all the trees it is sometimes hard to remember that this is just a stone's throw from the city, although the hum of the M1 rarely stops. My circular Saturday walk takes me down through the fields to a path by the river, where we sometimes see kingfishers, though I have not seen one for some time - and certainly not this year. Today there was a lone egret wading through a pool in the field beside the river and I was able to see it quite well through the binoculars though as you can see the basic camera with its small telephoto was not able to capture much - though I tried! In the photo above it is flying away....and hard to see that it is an egret indeed. I love seeing the egrets. They still seem to me to be exotic birds that until recently I didn't associate with Britain. They have been around here for about 5 years now I think and nest in the trees on the island in the nature reserve near Great Linford I think. The most I have seen at once is 3.

Just after the egret flew off we saw a hare, though I didn't get much chance to see it for long as the dog chased it. There is a bit of a conflict between dog walking and nature - and if I notice a hare I will put him on the lead. He would not be able to catch a hare - but will still give chase, and indeed once the hare has gone he will come back to the scent and follow it again with a lot of excitement.

The rooks were pretty noisy this morning - the small rookery is in full swing. And their noise is much better than that of the motorway. It's surprising how much wildlife there is in the area down by the river given that it is mainly farmland, but in fact it does have a mixture of arable land and pasture - and ungrazed fields that get flooded (which is where the snipe come) and an area of woodland at the back. Corn is sometimes grown in the field, making it attractive for pheasants at the end of the season.

I was sent a message from the BTO list a while ago with the following message and url:

The list for your home 10km square is here:
http://blx1.bto.org/birdtrack/anon-portal-with-gridref-to-list.jsp?ref=SP84&siteName=Your%20Home

This gives a list of bird species seen for a 10km square around your postcode - I thought this was a great resource - very handy to check when you think you have seen something to see whether it has ever been seen around your area - and of course, something to add to.