Four Seasons In One Day

I know that I go on about the weather, but really......... what's going on?
It is June, isn't it?
I've had a few evening visits to the patch lately, so I thought I'd make the effort and get there early today (6:45am). I reasoned that the place would be buzzing with birdlife as they'd all be busy gathering food for their young. Breakfast ahoy!
It didn't quite pan out the way I had expected. I wondered for a moment if I had entered some kind of time warp and walked into a typical February morning. Freezing cold, intermittent rain (April showers?), biting winds and just the occasional glimpses of sunshine. Delightful.
I decided to abandon the hide after 5 minutes. The "windows" were taking the full force of the north wind and it was pulling it through like some kind of vacumn.

So to the birds:
23 Mallards, 2 Tufted Duck, 4 Willow Warbler, 4 Chiifchaff, a Jay, 2 Stock Doves, 5 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 2 Whitethroats, 2 Song Thrushes, a Green Woodpecker, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, 5 Carrion Crow, 2 Buzzards, 2 Coots and a Moorhen.
However, none of these hung about long enough for me to take a decent photograph. I expect that they needed to keep moving to stay warm!
It was nice to see that a pair of Swallows have nested in one of the barns.

It was too early (and too cold) in the day for dragonflies but at least I could rely on the Brown Hares to offer me a photo opportunity. They really are very obliging animals and allowed me to get close enough for a reasonable shot.
Mind you, this poor fella is curled up into a little ball of fluff. He may just have been frozen to the spot!

Brown Hare

It's funny but when I look at that hare, I can't help thinking that he would make a really good hot water bottle cover.