Linacre Nestbox Season Begins - just!

It was supposed to snow this morning, so I decided to stay in bed. In the end it didn't snow, it didn't even rain, so I eventually  went down to Linacre in the afternoon to have a first check of the nestboxes for the 2016 season. In all, I checked all the tit boxes (80+), with just half a dozen or so showing any sign of nesting activity. All the nests found were N1, meaning they'd just been started, and consisted of just a few pieces of moss. A Great Tit was seen with nesting material need to one of the boxes.

Whilst walking around I heard at least 8 singing Chiffchaffs and 2 singing Willow Warblers, along with a drumming Great-spotted Woodpecker. 3 Canada Geese were on the top reservoir along with a pair of Mandarin Ducks,  a super group of c.50 Swallows- very nice. 1 House Martin was found in amongst the Swallows. The juvenile/2nd calendar year Shag was still present on the bottom reservoir along with 2 Cormorants. I managed to get a fuzzy picture of what I think is a Chiffchaff in the Willows by the top reservoir. As you can see, a pesky branch got in the way of the auto focus, but it's not too bad.

Chiffchaff

The Willows around the top reservoir were starting to come out today, so I got this photo.

Willow

The weather was about 8 degrees and there were a few sunny spells. During the sunny spells I noticed my first bee species of the year, a Tree Bumblebee, feeding on a dandelion.

Tree Bumblebee