about an hour of my train journey yesterday was through the countryside and i'm the sort of birder who is basically never not birding. almost every bird i see from the train feels more exciting, because it can be hard to spot anything at all at 60mph.

yesterday's haul of two buzzards, one grey heron and seven(!) oystercatchers was great, but the only thing i managed to photograph was a large gull (probably herring) on a railway shed roof. you'll have to take my word for it about the other species.

i climbed the same mountain twice this weekend. obviously it was for birds, but not just any birds. dotterel are one of our most special species in the uk; their preference for high-altitude and generally remote landscapes makes them punishingly hard to see, but when you do, they're utterly adorable.

i missed them on my first ascent, and i was ready to give up until next year (did i mention that often you have a window of less than a week in which to see them?) but then a report came through the next day of some more birds having arrived.

the feeling of getting to the top after a ~2,000 foot climb and then seeing these cute little plovers darting around on the plateau is magical. we got lucky with a trip of eight ("trip" is the collective noun for dotterels on migration), and had lots of time to watch them feeding, scrapping and calling to each other, before scattering to the winds.

i saw a greylag with a neck collar today - i forgot to take any photos so you'll have to make do with this high-quality artist's impression. i am a good little birder so i diligently got out my scope to see the code, so that i could report it to the british waterbird colour-marking group. it turns out the bird has a fairly boring history that involves rarely straying far from the field where i saw it, but that's not important right now.

as i stood there by the side of the road, a couple of cyclists passed me by at a moderate speed. the one in the rear was obviously curious, and she asked me, "what are you hoping to see?". this is a very familiar question for birders in the uk - we're often asked what we've seen, what we're looking for, etc, etc. it can be hard to know how to answer sometimes, because you have to make a quick judgement about how much detail the person expects, and which of the various birds you've seen they might want to know about.

however, this time i had to think really quickly, because the cyclist didn't even slow down to wait for an answer. i only had time to blurt out:

"i was just trying to read that goose"

birds i heard and saw today on a hill:

parachuting meadow pipits singing their enigmatic song

willow warblers chasing each other through the gorse full of the excitement of spring

tseep! tree pipit announcing its presence then zooming past overhead

five or six fresh little wheatears hopping about and collecting sun on the scree

a swallow skimming the ground low while it flew through, perfectly matching the contours of the hill

shiny male redstart in the sunlight

lots of linnets and redpolls and siskins calling from way up above

a green woodpecker calling from way down below

little ringed plover! it flew over and called a few times - piu! piu! piu! - on its way to who knows where

birds i heard and saw today near the coast:

shelduck doing a funny little dance

whitethroat with lovely orange-rufous highlights in its wings

just the head of a ruff poking out from behind an island - almost missed it!

a feeding flock of black-tailed godwits in various states of moult, just a 20-30 meters away

the lapwings i did find were in small flocks feeding amongst the sheep. there were also small flocks of meadow pipits, woodpigeons, jackdaws and rooks, plus some pied wagtails foraging in the stones, so at least there's still some signs of life in these over-farmed fields.

a couple of sand martins zooming over was a reminder that this is peak migration season, and perhaps most excitingly, a high flying sparrowhawk headed down into the valley. here she is swooping down to escape being harassed by a crow:

nearer the coast, i found a flock of linnet feeding in the stubble. try as i might, i couldn't find any twite among them - i think those little ginger creatures are going to elude me this year, which is a shame as they're one of the most charming finches we have.

birding on the marsh this morning. on the walk down i picked up my first singing blackcap of the year. it's like the world is starting to wake up after winter - the birds were alive not just with song but with their various cryptic display rituals. this redshank was stomping around and calling into the air just before i took this photograph. skylarks were rocketing up into the air in song flight and meadow pipits were parachuting down.

an all-to-brief view of a male merlin on the marsh was a treat. i tried to help other people in the hide find him, but that meant taking my scope off his perch and searching for useful landmarks. as often happens, he chose this moment to fly, and i didn't see where to. such is birding.

also, this strange mushroom fairy ring of godwits.

i was lucky enough to hear a flock this morning - although i couldn't really see them - alongside the more familiar sounds of dunnock, song thrush and a drumming woodpecker. yet another sign (among several that i've been appreciating recently) that spring will soon be here.

here's the only half decent photo of a redwing i have on my phone - one of the earliest arrivals last september.

we were promised constant rain today but in fact it didn't start until after lunchtime. even the wind died down for the hour or so around high tide - perfect conditions for viewing the wader roost. you often see these roosts described as "spectacular" and it's hard to think of a more appropriate word. thousands of knot and hundreds of other birds including grey plover, dunlin and bar-tailed godwit, all huddled together for safety on the shore and occasionally lifting up and becoming a swarm over the waves. it's hard to even comprehend the number of birds involved.

a gang of pale-bellied brent geese arrived just as the tide reached its highest. here they are leaving soon after.

female pied wagtail

i found a mini grey wagtail roost in a bamboo bush at the bottom of someone's garden (backing onto the canal) yesterday evening. the grey wagtail's natural range covers a huge stretch of europe and asia, overlapping with the natural range of bamboo, so while this grainy photo (taken in the north of england) looks exotic to me, i don't think the scene it depicts is all that anachronous.

(with the caveat that there are nearly 1500 species of bamboo and i don't know if this particular plant is one of the asian ones - but i'm more of a bird person than a plant person so i won't worry about that too much)

i went back today and the same grey wagtail arrived again just before sunset. i know it's the same one because she was colour-ringed, and by contacting the ringer, i found out that she's a first-year bird ringed last october. today - as yesterday - she arrived with a male, which hopefully means they're paired up already in advance of the breeding season later this year.

the dodgy photos i got in the low light are just about clear enough to show the yellow and violet rings on the female, and the bright yellow rump/vent of the male. i took the photos a few minutes apart, and looking at them again, i think the birds are actually perched on the same stalk of bamboo in each one.

also present today was a cormorant circling and occasionally dropping onto the canal. there must have been some pretty good fish going because cormorants usually scarper as soon as someone walks too close, but this one kept coming back. it looked golden in the fading light.