Coiled spring?
12 Apr 2015
On 7 April, conservationist and keen BirdTracker Mark Avery blogged about the lack of Willow Warblers at a site that usually holds them by then. He used the term 'coiled spring', which perfectly sums up how the first week of April felt. Howling winds from the north and west in the last few days of March resulted in delayed arrivals of species like Swallow and Blackcap that usually begin to appear in that period. Even species that start arriving earlier, such as Sand Martin and Wheatear (see graph, right), seemed to be stopped in their tracks by the weather. Fast forward a week and it really did start to feel like spring was springing, as migrants began flooding in on the more southerly airflow.
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