Spring signals - of an avian kind?

There is at least one blogger, out there in cyberspace, who bemoans the onset of Spring migration because it means that (Northern) wheatear photos are compulsory for any blogger, worthy of the name, to post an image, asap, after their first sighting?

Digi-scoped in March 2006 - so quite an important demonstration of how far
digital technology has come? 

That first, flashing "white-arse" is, to me, a sure sign that Spring has sprung and the summer invasion is imminent? However, it is not this fancy-dan passerine that signals the onset; for me it is that most stunning of wildfowl, the Garganey, that fires the imagination. Ospreys are already back in Scotland and Sand Martins have probably recolonised the entire UK by the time I see my first Garganey.

A pair flushed from a small drain on the Minster Marshes - April 2009

Yet, somehow, it is these splendid ducks that flick the switch - ever since my first sighting of a resplendent drake, at Tyttenhanger GP's Herts, way back in 1990 (?) I have had a love affair with these early harbingers of the coming seasons. Their crazy comb-scraping call, the unbelievable intricacy of the drake's breeding attire - they are a truly wondrous species. So, although I rejoice at the first Wheatear that confronts me as I make my way across Newland's Farm, en route to work, it will be the sighting of my first Garganey (probably at a very unfashionable venue where I happen to be fishing) that will trigger the expectations for another summer invasion?

One, of a pair, that was present on a small drain, out on Worth Marshes, 14th March 2012 - last day of the pike season!