Nearly there

Last weekend, 2nd March, my focus was on a Grimley visit. It was a lovely spring-like day, and Sling Pool was chuffing with the spectacle of c600 Lapwings. A sight that was a throwback to the olden days ( so I'm told) Whatever, it was a joy to see. There were good numbers of Wigeon too, as well as Tufted, Gadwall etc.
Over on the Camp Lane pits there was a stunning male Pintail, which took flight for a while, circling the site and calling. I then connected with the Goldeneye's and eventually one of the Smews. Kingfishers zipped around. All these cracking species even better in the some of the first decent light of the year. Grimley is stand alone the finest piece of wetland in the area at present. It's great to have an area like this locally that reliably is producing the best birding around week in, week out.

Old Blue Eyes

Later in the week the weather finally picked up enough to warrant dusting off the moth trap. It was Wednesday when I nabbed a new species, a nice fresh Dotted Border.

Second moth of the year, Dotted Border

By this weekend the winter was giving the cocky upstart that was Spring a bloody nose. It didn't matter as Saturday, I attended the annual Worcestershire Biological Recorders meeting at Worcestershire Wildlife Trust HQ, Smite Farm. A most entertaining series of talks by County experts on subjects including Dragonflies, Water Shrews, Bumble bee's and Grasshoppers. The guest speaker was Dr Helen Roy, who spoke engagingly about her passion, Ladybirds. The underlying theme throughout was "Submit your records" !! and I would encourage all those who regularly go out and observe the flora and fauna to make the effort to submit biological records, it doesn't take much effort and provides so much valuable data.You can subscribe to the Worcestershire Recorders for £17.50 per year. You get 2 issues of the Worcestershire Record, a great colour journal, and you get to go to these great meetings too !
What the day did do, was give me lift.Winter has dragged on now. One can draw a lot of inspiration from meeting dedicated and knowlegable naturalist's, and all that talk of Inverts helps you realise Spring might finally make a proper appearance soon !