5th March 2010
A few fine days have encouraged the birds to push ahead with preparations for the breeding season. At Hemsworth, blackbirds and robins are now singing regularly before dawn and their song has carried particularly well in the recent frosty and very calm mornings.
At Ackworth, I have been watching greater spotted woodpeckers regularly and have seen one druming on a dead branch of an oak tree. A green woodpecker is yaffling regularly and yellowhammers have started singing during the past week.
Each morning, the school has its morning assembly, which is called Morning Meeting. This is held in the Meeting House, a large building, close to the main road. During the past week, two people have asked me about the bird song that they have heard whilst in Morning Meeting and I have been able to tell them that they have been listening to great tits. The great tits have sung in hawthorns growing beside the Meeting house every year since my arrival at Ackworth almost nineteen years ago.
The cold winter has had an effect on vegetation but there are signs of things starting to move. In the wooded areas, the leaves of bluebells are beginning to push through and there are signs of lesser celandines starting to grow. I expect that the weather will not have to stay fine for very long before there will be more conspicuous signs of new growth.