Judging by the weather on Saturday morning I could have renamed this post early Spring at Spurn as the weather was gorgeous!

I was up early and headed for Kilnsea Wetlands. The sunrise lit up the sky and put some beautiful colours on the flat calm water.

Spring was definitely in the air as skylarks, meadow pipits and curlews were all trying to out-compete each other.

The resident barn owl turned up on cue and common wildfowl duly obliged. The resident whooper swan flock remained distant at the back of the reserve.

After sunrise I headed off for Skeffling. I had a rather optimistic target of the pallid harrier. The main thing that struck me at Skeffling were the two dead whales. Apparently some samples had been taken and it was a shame to see what is a most undignified end to the lives of two magnificent creatures. Alas there was no pallid harrier but again more skylarks and meadow pipits. Waders remained distant but a flock opposite Welwick saltmarsh were unsettled by a raptor that was just too distant to identify.

I headed back to Kilnsea around mid-morning and there was the odd chiff-chaff singing which was nice. Long-tailed tits were nestbuilding and small tortoiseshell and peacock butterflies were on the wing.

It started to cloud over in the afternoon and a coolish breeze off the sea picked up reminding me that it was still winter after all.

I headed home and arrived in a rain shower but content in the thought that I had had another cracking session at Uk’s wildlife Mecca.