The time of the committee's return visit to our reserve of Langford Lowfields. What changes we saw, the area of our visit actually looked like a bird reserve and there were birds there too. We were shown the area that had been finished by the contractors and had been partly planted with reeds by volunteers. This time the reeds have taken, the first plantings having either been eaten by birds or died because they had come from the wrong environment. The area was beginning to look like the plans.

As soon as we had got onto the site through the wire fence I felt excitement, there seemed to be birds everywhere, hundreds of Golden Plover wheeled overhead forming complex patterns in the sky. The settled on the mud below where we stood only to decide flying was fun and off they would go again, each bird seeming to know what the rest of the flock was going to do. Within seconds of their flight arrowhead formations had formed, then they broke up into a cloud, then a swirl and then back to the V formation. Skylarks passed over, Lapwings followed the Plovers, Pipits danced in front of us, everywhere birds. I began again working out how old I would be when the reserve finally came into the Society's hands. Then I heard a bit of good news, instead of 2020, we could have the reserve in 2017, three years earlier and even better it could come our way in 2015, of course the final date will depend on the amount of gravel on the site, the more there is the longer the work will go on. Whether we will have access before remains in doubt as right until the end of the extraction it will be a fully operational quarry. And unlike Attenborough, itself a working site, the gravel here is removed from the site by lorries.

I must admit I missed a lot of what was being said, I was too busy watching the birds, but my wife Jan got everything on tape, she films wherever she goes, no-one is safe. But just like the belly dancer on our visit to Egypt, the birds had to be left out as the tape was running out. What did come across during the talk was the fact that the staff were as excited about the project as we were.

The group of visitors was made up of the committees of three Local Groups, ourselves, Mansfield and Lincoln and it was clear that the other two groups knew more about the reserve than we did. How do they manage it? On our last visit a few years ago one of the men present had already seen over 100 species on the site and it was clear that that total had gone up in the time between. Is all the watching done from the riverside? All to soon the light started to go and it would soon be time to leave. But wait, down in the water, daintily stepping from behind an island came a vision in white. A Little Egret! Now I am not normally so excited by this species as on visits to my son's in Chichester I see them on almost every stretch of water I look at and this year with the trip to Egypt I have seen HUNDREDS! But this one was just a little bit special. It was the 200th species I have seen in Nottinghamshire. What a little beauty.

With the fading light we left the site and went for a buffet in the memorial hall in Collingham village. While helping ourselves to the food we had a chance to question the staff and later were briefed on further plans for the county, if only half of them come to pass we will no longer need to make the journey to Norfolk to see our birds. The new openness of the staff and their enthusiasm still amazes me. How times have changed. Now when you ask for something or need help, you know you are going to get it. Again after this meeting I left fired by their enthusiasm with the knowledge that we are in good hands.