Like a cork out of a bottle

Today it was spring. Blue skies, a warm southerly wind at last and birds arrived … in their hundreds. Chaffinches piled past us on the clifftop, splattered with Bramblings and Siskins; even a Blue Tit or two couldn’t resist the urge to migrate. A couple of Black Redstarts on the hill and another at Falcon Cottage heralded the start of a movement that was long overdue. Redwings, Fieldfares, Blackbirds and Meadow Pipits flocked over the fields and flew west. Snipe gathered around the local water before bursting upward and Chiffchaff could be heard in the woods to the north of us. Tens of Buzzards poured past, sometimes in company of others sometimes alone, sometimes west, sometimes off the sea. I counted 24 Sparrowhawks through this morning; an unprecedented movement. A single Red Kite then three more flexed and circled their way west. It appears the sun on their backs gave everything the urge to rush … to breed. Magnificent birds, magnificent day.