Nature Notes

[ErrolTheDragon]

There's a gardening thread which may overlap with this one but I thought people might like to share nature sightings as the season changes. What we see if we can get out for a walk, plants coming into leaf and bloom, creatures in the garden, birds flying overhead - whatever.

Yesterday along the canal: busy wrens, 3 butterflies (tortoiseshell I think). Lots of Lords and Ladies arrow-shaped leaves. A little bank of primroses, lots of celandines and some wood anemones. Yellow iris leaves starting to shoot up in the edge of the canal.

We are lucky enough to have access to a river and caught our first stickleback of the year.

Yay! I love guddling in streams and rock pools, honestly, I must sometimes look like Gollum on a beach.

It is a gall, Errol, just a very new one.

Tree Peony ?
I accidentally hid this thread and have only just found out how to show it again.
I do not have any interesting photos this week . There is a lot of bird action around the garden , robins , swallows ,tits, wood pigeon , goldfinches , blackbirds , wrens . NDN cat has been lurking .

Damn , page had not refreshed .

I have never seen one of those pink galls before . Interesting .

They go brown - at least I think they do. I go past that spot quite often so I'll keep an eye open. I think each one contains a wasp larva.

Okay, this is a bit weird, but I am delighted to report that I just found some hedgehog poo in the entrance of my hedgehog feeding station 😄

Evidence that it is actually being used for the creatures it was intended for - as well as any passing mice or other local rodents.

The hawthorn blossom is smelling lovely now.
Today we had a look at the canal (though not walking along the towpath, it's a bit like the M6), I heard a reed warbler.

We spotted a weasel running through the field we were walking in today! What a sight to lift the spirits.

Umpteen years ago we saw one moving her babies across a field Namechange.

We kept very still and watched her go backwards and forwards five times carrying a tiny, tiny little one each time - it was right across a field and she put them a hole under some tree roots (God knows where she brought them from - she just kept disappearing into the woods and reappearing with another little infant in her mouth - but it must have been somewhere she felt was unsafe)

She was such a minute little thing herself - it was probably like us carrying our kids about two miles to a new home. And I don't know how many she had moved before we saw her.

It was thrilling!

Oh WOW @Schadenfreude!!! I wish we'd stayed longer in that case - this one was similarly darting across the field and into tree roots (well, it disappeared under a lone tree/shrub at the edge of the field). Maybe if we'd stayed and waited we might have got more weasel action.

I was with my 6 year old so it was absolutely magical to share it with her.

It IS magical namechange-that's great way describing it.

You feel blessed to have witnessed it, don't you?

I haven't seen a weasel in years. The most interesting wildlife I've seen in the last six months was a young goshawk parked up on a telegraph pole.

Guelder rose and horse chestnut are in bloom ATM, and the hawthorn is going nuts as well. Our local rabbit population is rebounding after a few really low years. The younger dog is pleased about this, but she isn't allowed to chase them.

I've occasionally seen weasels and stoats darting across a road, but the most genuinely awesome (though not so much of the 'awww'!) was years ago seeing one (I can't remember which now) dispatching and dragging off a rabbit way bigger than itself.

We had an evening walk today - some wonderful birdsong, with the somewhat less melodious noise of red legged partridges thrown in for good measure.

It looks as if a sparrowhawk has nabbed a collared dove here...

Does anyone know what this is?

It looks like cuckoo flower, also known as lady's smock, @AnneKipanki. I'd need to see the leaves. It's a pretty little thing.

I also think it's lady's smock. See attached.

Rowan and rabbit. The one in the pic was either brave or foolhardy, as the dog was staring at him...

Thanks @GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman . I thought it was that but I was not sure.

Amazing with the single rabbits just now . I videoed that one that I photographed.

My robins now eat 1ft away from me and have eaten out my hand once too.

The babies are getting huge and will fledge next week I reckon.

Rumours of cuckoos in the village, going for a very early walk tomorrow to see if I can hear. Never heard a cuckoo before.

Well Robin babies have fledged today....and there's a new egg in the nest.

They don't hang around do they?!!