Gathering nesting material

May Day morning at Maxey Pits - skylarks singing overhead, black-headed gulls squabbling on the edge of the lake with nests in every available location - on the tern rafts, on the roof of an old hut and on top of the pump, lapwings calling and displaying over the damp grassland and sand martins swooping down over the bank, picking up pieces of dried grass for their nests. A veritable explosion of fecundity.