Songsters

Another late afternoon walk, much needed after a day of ordering and re-labelling about four hundred images which form part of the data set for our botanical and invertebrate surveys of the John Clare Countryside last summer.

It was about 16C when I set out across the (dry) flood meadows towards Water Newton Lock - no need for a coat at all. Though everything still looks quite wintry, there's absolutely no doubt that spring is in the air. The rookery near the church was busy with chattering birds, their raucous dialogue one of the most wonderful sounds of spring in many of our local villages,

Song Thrushes are undoubtedly more tuneful than Rooks, though eventually even their song can become a bit repetitive. We've recently had a Song Thrush visiting our garden, but I was amazed to hear at least seven males singing during the course of my walk, which was only about 2.5 km long. A couple of the pairs were seriously engaged in a vocal battle! 

I can't ever remember hearing quite so many in such a small area -  maybe the local population is picking up. This part of the valley has always had fairly good habitat quality, but in recent years significantly more land has been put down to organic grazing and arable cropping - maybe a factor in their recovery?