Days like these - another from Minsmere

Well folks - I'm rather intermittent at blipping just now but this was a must.

My Easter break is being spent Spring cleaning, especially as my parents arrive tomorrow! But the weather was so glorious today that I thought - just like Mole in The Wind in the Willows - hang Spring cleaning, I'm going to Minsmere! So I scrabbled and scrooged myself to the car (see W in the W reference below) and headed off.

I knew it would be busy and sure enough the car park was pretty full and there were lots of families about, which was good to see. After a quick lunch I set off along the North Wall (into a rather fresh breeze) and recorded my first ever sighting of a male Redstart. Also this year's first Oystercatchers and Cuckoo (heard not seen).

Despite there being a lot of people, Minsmere always seems to absorb them and, apart from one or two rowdy and uncontrolled specimens, everyone was being well-behaved. One boy (aged 7 ish) excitedly told me he had seen a rabbit!!

As usual my steps took me to the Bittern Hide where all was quite dull for about an hour. People came and went and so did a couple of Marsh Harrier and Greylag Geese. Then "BITTERN FLYING!" came the cry. And boy oh boy - not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 Bittern were flying over the reedbed. Presumably a courtship flight, it lasted a good couple of minutes and I did manage one or two reasonable shots, though it was not that close - here and here.

One by one they dropped into the reedbed but the spot this one chose was already occupied by a Marsh Harrier who was not best pleased! Wonderful action and well worth scrabbling and scrooging for.

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring- cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said 'Bother!' and 'O blow!' and also 'Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, 'Up we go! Up we go!' till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.