AFTER a very mild winter, spring seems a little reluctant to follow in its wake. But whatever the weather, for the next two months migrating birds will move to and from our shores.

Our winter-visiting redwings, fieldfares, some finches, robins, blackbirds, geese, swans and even the tiny goldcrest begin to fly south and east back to the continent and Arctic regions.

Our summer migrants arrive here from March, the chiffchaff traditionally the first. Closely following come willow warbler, whitethroat, terns, martins, blackcap, wheatear, nightingale and a host of other species winging in from sub-Saharan and other African areas.

Having begun their journey from Capetown reedbeds some weeks ago, my x-factor favourites the swallows should be here by early April, gracing the river Thames where they nest along the towpath at Kingston.

Swifts do not fly in until the first week in May and the hobby, that small dashing falcon, arrives at the same time, hunting dragonflies and swifts on the wing.

Of course, spring would not be complete without the iconic call of the cuckoo. Sadly though, numbers have crashed within the past decade or so and those repetitive dual-notes are heard less and less. In my traditional cuckoo ‘hotspot’ in the Northamptonshire countryside the bird has not been heard for three years.

Many of our summer visitors are excellent songsters such as the blackcap, willow warbler and, of course, nightingale, all of which add to the burgeoning dawn chorus of our resident species.

But we must be up before the lark to listen to it at its glorious musical best.