The weather’s impact on birdlife at the start of their busiest season, as well other adverse factors such as habitat loss and pollution, is significant.

A dry, windy spring, even with sunny days and Easter’s summery interlude, will require all Nature’s wondrous ability to rebalance.

Obtaining the necessary warmth and moisture is complicated by our local low average rainfall being comparable with Jerusalem.

When young birds are hatching insects and other invertebrates play a key role, particularly the timely emergence of caterpillars.

Adequate flying insects are also needed as prey for such summer visitors as swallows, martins and swifts.

Before having to contend with conditions here they have been affected by factors in their wintering places and on hazardous long migration routes including the Sahara. They are sadly much declined and are nowadays most reliably found near livestock where insect life is also attracted.

The tell-tale calls and sight of spring birds have always been noted and provided a sense of reassurance.

Hearing the first cuckoo has long been a red-letter day for many, now sadly mostly only in favoured localities such as river valleys.

The RSPB’s recent single played on Radio One, Let Nature Sing, is proving quite a hit, featuring the voices of our 25 best-known birds.

This taps into the modern trend often when walking of listening to music through earplugs.

It just might paradoxically divert folk back to instead sometimes listen and distinguish the natural sounds around them first-hand.

Recently travelling through Point Clear at teatime I was heartened by the amount of birdsong - led by blackbirds.

Amid the bushier edges of local villages chiffchaffs have headed the way of spring arrivals clocking in, repetitively calling their name.

A fortnight later the fluty blackcap followed and then the humbler whitethroat, with its lesser cousin also rattling away from denser cover.

Turtle doves and nightingales are a particular feature at Wrabness Nature Reserve and both flagship species of conservation concern and effort to revive two delightful summer birds that were locally widespread until quite recent times.

For your diary: Sunday, June 16, Great Holland Pits nature reserve with pond-dipping, for children of all ages, and open day, including guided walks with a focus on wildlife photography.