Mark Hamblin (rspb-images.com)
Pairs of shelduck (above) are evident across the lagoons opposite the viewing room. With an increasing number of lapwing nests being recorded, hopes are rising for a better breeding season. Goldeneye and tufted duck are in Vane bay.
Nigel Blake (rspb-images.com)
A yellow wagtail (above), only the second recorded sighting at Vane, has been seen following in the tracks of grazing cattle. Wheatear have also been spotted on the wetland edges and a pair of great-crested grebes are nesting on the flood.
Numbers of swallows have been growing as they check out their usual nesting haunts around the reserve. A female marsh harrier - pictured, Ernie Janes (rspb-images.com) - had to take refuge in the trees on the lochside after being mobbed by crows. Three juvenile tawny owls have now been spotted roosting in trees close to the centre.
A juvenile tawny owl (pictured, Andy Hay, rspb-images.com), is perched high in a tree and easily visible from the car park path. Out on the loch, there have been several sightings of osprey and a black-tailed godwit in early spring plumage on the flood.
Meadow pipit and skylark have been seen over the wetlands where displaying redshank and snipe Ipicture by Mark Hamblin (rspb-images.com) are also in evidence. A more unusual sighting over the coutryard today was a brown long-eared bat who circled for several minutes in bright afternoon sunshine.