A cold, wet and gusty month for the most part, windy enough for a power cut. Arctic winds, big clouds, drizzle and damp. Snow and some frosts. Many more leaves and flowers opening up. Winter visitors leaving, whilst summer visitors return.
A Curlew hunts on the beach
Lapwings flocking at start of month, more often seen in pairs by end of it.
Seals spread across the shore.
A breezy river Yare.
Herring Gull by the shore.
Black-headed Gulls have left my inland home, but a herring gull pair remains.
Gulls flocking over the shore at sundown.
Pheasants claim, defend and pronounce their territory.
One crows regularly ahead of the dawn chorus one morning.
Planting out an Elder sapling. Looks curiously like a miniature green man.
Snow falls in the middle of the month. Flecks, then flurries that soon lie, soon melt away.
Tawny Owl heard calling overnight, sometimes in early morning. A commotion in a churchyard tree: Magpies, Jays, Blackbirds scolding and shrieking; a Tawny Owl flies out, its tormentors in pursuit.
Sweep, sweep, sweep. Spoonbills returning this month.
Bearded Tits ping and pursue through the reeds.
Lapwing displays, the winter flocks dispersing.
A wet month: wellies not yet for storage.
Redwings call and fly over eastward. Feed in a pasture, but soon fly onward, on their return homeward.
Greylag pairs claim their patches.
Pinkfeet small flock seen once on coastal grazing marsh, but most have departed.
Great White Egret rests by the reeds whilst a Hen Harrier hunts above.
Crow caws on a dull, cold afternoon.
Busy Rooks building and repairing their nests. A Magpie seen nest-building.
Avocets returning this month, bright white, elegant birds.
Avocet flock set up by marsh harrier pair.
Violets on the wayside.
A month of Primroses, Daffodils, Narcissi and Hyacinth after earlier Snowdrops and Crocuses. More colourful after the more restrained February flowers. Magnolia flowers opening, and bright Forsythia in many gardens.
17th March 2023: First Chiffchaff heard. Singing infrequently by Cley NWT visitor centre. By the end of the month, Chiffchaff singing regularly and widely. (A Willow Warbler heard 31st March).
I listen for a Blackcap, but not yet heard.
Dramatic cloud and sun glancing. Another day and an intense rainbow follows a cloudburst.
Sparrowhawk braces against gusts as he watches the snack bar (bird feeders).
A moth batters against the bathroom window, blackbirds singing now at dusk.
A Tawny Owl calls at dawn.
Heron landing after an aerial display to another.
Gusty winds blowing from the south, seemingly driving back the shallow, north-sea waves.
Spoonbills seen flying over coastal marshes, sometimes small flocks of Curlew. Skies empty now of Pinkfeet flocks. Great White and Little Egrets seen regularly.
A slain nestling on the patio, pale pink and soft. Fallen or taken from a blackbird nest, the nestling is buried in the fragrant soil beneath the silver birch.
Soon to be the season of offspring: of predators and eat-or-be-eaten, new life and death.
A rainy evening perfect for ducks. Mallards preening by the path whilst Tufted Ducks hunt on a lake. Many Shelduck and Shoveler still present, Wigeon and Teal too. From the bathroom one evening, Wigeon heard calling--some heading east, heading home.
Cattle return to pasture.
Shorelarks, perfectly camouflaged on the beach, not yet migrated.
Black-headed Gulls squawk, squabble and caw--very vocal this month and almost all in their summer caps.
The Holkham Barnacle Goose flock returns mid-March.
Raven at Holkham. Long-tailed Tits seen nest-building, but no Lesser-spotted Woodpeckers seen or heard, no Great-spotted Woodpeckers heard drumming.
First summer migrant seen: a Wheatear from central Africa hunting on saltmarsh.
An influx of Alpine Swifts this month, with a possible glimpse of one at Cromer: a large bird with flickering wingtips.
Skylarks sing over pasture and beach, but Meadow Pipits just calling.
Oystercatcher flocks fly over the waves, Ringed Plovers hunt by the surf.
Brent Geese flocks still at the coast, their skeins loose, low and silent, compared to the departed Pinkfeet.
First Swallow seen: a few flying over the dunes and sea.
Hoping for more hirundines this year than the previous, poor year.
Gusty, changeable days. Dramatic clouds, rain, sunlight.
Mud, mud, mud on any well-trodden path. The wettest month for a long time.
As with previous years, this spring's weather has been wet, cold, disappointing.
Bluebells beginning to flower, and Wood Anemone opening in ancient woodland. Lesser Celandine, Dog's Mercury, Primroses also seen.
Snowdrops flowers gone by end of month; Crocuses long gone but sprawled grasses remain. Daffodils abundant, gaudy. Narcissi waning. Bees more apparent, but only 2 butterflies seen.
Winter departures and spring arrivals: large flock of Fieldfares chuckles as fly eastward at month's end, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff singing in woods below them.
My sounds of March:
Blackbird
Lapwing
Skylark
Pheasant
Birds heard singing in March:
Robin, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Marsh Tit, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Siskin, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Skylark, Mistle Thrush, Goldcrest, Dunnock, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler
Wood Pigeon and Collared Dove cooing.
Pheasants crowing.
