It's official

Yesterday afternoon I thought I heard a familiar bird cry, even getting the camera out and carrying it with me while in the garden. A few dark shapes a few hundred metres away between the trees but no direct close sighting.

Perhaps it is a large hen harrier -we think we have lost a chicken in the last weeks and assume that was the reason. But the call??? Well today the answer - two pairs of kites have returned. I simply can't believe it. They always come in the first week of March, you can set your iPhone watch by them. For us though, a wonderful thrilling site and means our chickens are safe for the summer. The geese who are very good at spotting danger from above are not used to them and kept screaming each time they swooped over. The geese are on the field where the kites have often collected their nest material as it is lined with silver birches which threw off loads of flexible branches in the winter. We have been following the kites for at least the last five years, sadly the felling & storms of the last years have pushed their nests further away from the house - back in 2011 we could see in to the nest from the upstairs windows.

They are still reconnoitring, and spent all day circling the house but always on the other side of the trees. I always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was a proper spring day today - cooler than of late with the wind picking up as the storm that hit the UK a few days ago moves this way.
Found the first goose egg ever in their house. It was filthy, I suspect the girls who were only born last year had no idea what it was. Cleaned it a little bit, being careful not to do anything to harm the protective layer and built a nest and put it in. Will see what happens. An hour before, I had asked Angie what are we going to do with the geese. We had always intended to slaughter them and buy chicks in the spring. The egg discovery has made the decision for us!

Angie did some lunge work with Rosie on the sand school, tying up Flash as he can't simply lie down and watch - he has to follow every footstep and be prepared to correct any fault Rosie makes - he runs around on the outside in the deep sand and it's amazing he has never had a heart attack. Luna has learnt what to do but she stays on the fence and runs up and down - Flash is not impressed with her work and is desperate to get to work. Later Angie took Sultan & the dogs for a ride and I collected Flash after about 20 minutes - video and a few pics of our spring day on Flickr. I forgot to photograph the first flower in the garden - simply unbelievable, at least 4-6 weeks too early.

Cleaning out the goose hut late afternoon, heard a beech tree just behind me, just in the forest, start to fall. It got caught in another one and every few minutes moved a metre down. I stood with camera at the ready for a video but the wind didn't pick up and nothing happened. A couple of hours later, after dark when it did get windy, heard the tree crash down. We had asked the forester to remove them after last March's storm but he said he couldn't sell the wood due to the glut of storm wood. It was inevitable, with the protection of the spruce gone and the ground also getting boggier without the spruces using the water, that they would topple with time. I suspect will end up as firewood for us - beech is excellent, probably too good really for burning.

Events in Europe continue to deteriorate. Back in 2000, the kite was named Germany's bird of the year to try and help protect the species under threat, with the message that Germany had a special duty to protect the species as it was dying out in many areas, especially in the UK with the exception of Wales. I wonder when Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will form a breakaway state!