Report from 4 to 10 April

Every day sees the arrival of a new species for the season: Yellow Wagtail, Willow Warbler, Little Grebe, Black Kite, and Common Tern. Two pairs of the latter have already settled in on the lake and begun their courtship, with the male offering minnows to the female. The first Night Herons appeared two weeks ago, and now the full contingent is here. It is still early for them to nest, and their lives are exclusively noctural. Several dozens of them spend the day dozing at their daytime roost. On the other hand, the many Robins and White Wagtails that spent the winter with us are all gone – we have not seen a single one of either. Butterflies are increasingly conspicuous. In addition to those that overwinter here and can be seen on the wing at any month, all it takes is a warm day for us to see the Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni), Eastern Bath White (Pontia edusa), Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria), Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus), Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas), Southern Grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus malvoides), and Mallow Skipper (Carcharodus alceae). Springtime also means new sounds: during the day we can hear the calls of the Italian Tree Frog, while the European Green Toad sings at night. Turning back to birds, the wader flocks have included 150 Ruff and 100 Wood Sandpipers, in addition to several more Greenshanks and Spotted Redshanks, and a single Black-tailed Godwit. Green Sandpiper numbers fell by half in just a few days. Although the Wood Sandpipers are not the most numerous wader species this week, they are surely the most conspicuous. Unlike the Ruff, they are highly vocal, and they are also scattered all over the place and hard to count, again unlike the Ruff, which prefer moving in tight flocks.