At the end of April migrants began to flood in to the Tees Valley after quite a slow and cold start to the spring. Highlights in the Saltholme area recently have been two curlew sandpipers amongst a small flock of dunlin, two immature little gulls hawking for insects over Saltholme pools, an influx of swifts 
(with maximum numbers of up to one hundred), ruff and black-tailed Godwits resplendent in full breeding plumage.
Up to seven white wagtails and up to twenty yellow wagtails have appeared in the past few days. Sand martins are back in very good numbers but as yet are showing little interest in our designer built nesting bank…there is plenty of time.
Volunteers and staff have worked feverishly to repair the islands specially created to encourage terns to nest on. Last year 420 pairs of common terns nested here, making Saltholme the third largest colony in the country. We finished the work on the islands just in the nick of time as the first terns returned just days afterwards. There are now around 100 pairs starting to settle for the breeding season and numbers are growing by the day.
Yesterday there was a black tern at Saltholme Pools and a report of a red kite not far away flying over Dalton Piercy village at 5pm
Construction work continues on the Discovery Centre, the hides and all the rest of the future visitor facilities. We have been receiving e-mails asking about the opening date for Saltholme and many thanks to everyone for getting in touch. It's clear there's lots of interest and enthusiasm for Saltholme, which is great news.
However, we are still some months off being able to welcome visitors as there's still a huge job for the contractors to do on site, but we are getting there gradually. At the moment it's hard to predict when the builders will be handing over the buildings etc to us but very unlikely that it will be before late summer/autumn this year. As soon as we have definite news we'll post it here first.
In the meantime thanks for all the messages of interest and support and we're looking forward to welcoming you to Saltholme just as soon as we can.