Tension's running high...

I woke with a start just before seven, and suddenly realised that I was supposed to be heading off to Thorpe Wood to do the second breeding bird transect. I nearly decided to leave it until tomorrow, but it was a fine morning, so I dashed around and was only there about ten minutes late. It was below freezing and not much had changed since the last visit. There was still a large flock of redwings, but a nuthatch was calling was nice to hear.

At lunchtime I took Pete to King's Dyke Nature reserve today for a meeting, and while I was there I made a quick visit to the hide. The reserve is still looking very wintery, but many black-headed gulls have taken possession of one of the small islands. This species nests in colonies on cliffs, the ground, or on buildings; the nest is usually a scrape in the ground or a pile of dead plant material. Certainly there was a continuous chorus of raucous calls, and quite a few squabbles between neighbouring males, of which this was the most spectacular.

Later in the afternoon Alex and I went to Thorpe Wood again, so that he could measure some trees for one of his assignments. He needs to work out the volume of timber in the wood - so lots of maths to be done now!!