Early March showed signs that spring ought to be just around the corner as birds began to move through Saltholme. The numbers of redshanks were consistently in the teens most days and a number of ruffs also put in an appearance. Numbers of golden plovers and lapwings were down from their winter peak of a combined flock of 4500 birds. The lower numbers suggest that many birds headed back for the hills to start prospecting for breeding sites. Given the freezing weather at Easter, they may have regretted departing so soon.
Small numbers of pink-footed geese joined the large resident flocks of greylags as they headed northward on their return journey to their breeding grounds in Iceland. A drake green-winged teal, the North American counterpart of our teal, was present on a shallow pool and may stick around for a while.
We are eagerly awaiting the return of the first sand martins, which usually show up in March. This year we have a surprise waiting for them. Whilst they have been on their winter `holidays` in sub-Saharan Africa we have been building them a designer home! Using specially engineered concrete facing stones with nest holes cast into them we have constructed an entire bank with 100 nesting places in it. So should our sand martins like the look of the impressive new build a whole colony could establish themselves here.