Bursting out all over!

Wheaters, sand martins, swallows, chiffchaffs, willow warblers, blackcaps - are all here and the warblers (the last three) are definitely a-warbling; and the skylarks are in pretty fine voice too! The shags and the peregrines are on eggs, and although the rest of the seabirds are not totally settled there is plenty of courtship and mating going on, and they are in and around in large numbers more often than not. The swans on the Mire Loch were busily building their nest yesterday - lets hope that they actually use it to hatch some offspring this year, as we haven't had cygnets on the Loch for 3 years now.

On the butterfly front small tortoiseshell, peacock and green veined white have all been spotted. As far as mammals are concerned, we have daily sigthings of roe deer and hares. And Elaine, our new Seasonal Ranger, saw a stoat with a baby in its mouth on the Mire Dam the other day.

The plants are also waking up from the winter. The little bit of blackthorn that we have on the reserve is in flower, which along with one or two wild cherry (or gean) in blossom, adds a splash of white to the sea of yellow gorse around the More Loch. The leaves on some of the early trees, like rowan, hawthorn and sycamore, are starting to burst out and there are two or three whitebeam in the car park that are looking particularly splendid in my eyes!

And who says that St Abbs is all about seabirds?!