IN these troubled times it is somewhat reassuring to know that at least the natural world appears to be functioning relatively normally. With spring in full swing, birdsong is increasing in volume and it is now time for our summer visiting birds to begin to arrive.

Nature Notes: It's mating season for frogs and toads

Usually the first species to fly in is the chiffchaff, a bird that sings its own name, followed by blackcap, willow warbler, and other assorted warblers, and the aptly named whitethroat, the individual in the photograph sporting what looks like a stylish Santa Claus beard!

As these birds were winging their way into Britain, I wonder if the recent Saharan sandstorm which blew clouds of orange-coloured dust northwards across Europe affected the migrating birds in any way as air quality can be adversely affected in such conditions and as all those birds spent our winter in either central, sub-Saharan or tropical Africa, they must have flown through the sandstorm.

Nature Notes: A close call for grebes

Next to fly in from April are nightingale, house and sand martins, swallow, cuckoo and last of all in May, swifts.

Sadly though, the swift population has declined by a half in the past three decades and I have not heard a cuckoo calling since 1995. For me, spring is incomplete without the call of a cuckoo.