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.

I’m walking distance from both the sea and mountains ☺️

I live fairly close to an RSPB reserve that is well-known for its choughs, but I only discovered last year that there’s a small group of them just down the road (or rather, a short climb up a very steep hill!).

I don’t usually see the choughs, unless I climb that hill, which is not a good idea in winter. Today, however, they were circling the hillside, so I managed to get a good look at them without needing to put in much effort!

I'm very jealous. I grew up in the highlands and miss the mountains but not the rain.

I saw two bullfinches in my garden today. Where were they last weekend for my big birdwatch?

Now off to google what a chough looks like.

Oh I love bullfinches @Wildernesstips. They’re so pretty!

I saw a flowering daffodil on my walk today. It must have been a really early variety for it to be flowering now.

I also had a close encounter with 2 little egrets. I don’t think they were expecting to see many people around as the weather was just awful. Getting a close up view of these elegant birds almost made up for the cold, rain and wind 😄

I spotted a single flowering daffodil today on a walk too. Lots of lords-and-ladies leaves coming up and primroses on the banks. Just lovely.

We ventured out to our local small river today. Drifts of snowdrops on the slopes, and fresh green growth of leaves tantalisingly promising flowers in due course: bluebells, celandine, wood and water avens, buttercups....
I spotted a dipper in the stream - such amazing birds when you see underwater footage.

Back home I was surprised to see some iris reticulata suddenly blooming in a pot I dragged out of a corner last weekend from where it had been languishing since last spring.

There was a bit of sunshine this morning, so I went for a walk by the sea. Lots of ringed plover, redshank and oystercatchers around and -of course- the usual selection of gulls 😄

I don’t know why, but plovers always make me smile. They’re just so cute!

Lovely to see plovers - saw some last year in St Ives.

Very excited to see hair ice on my walk this morning. Never seen it before and actually had never even heard of it before this year.

You lucky thing! Usually we can get to RSPB and WWT reserves plus coast - quite as exciting a stretch as yours sounds but usually a good range of birds.

And it's pissing down here today so even the garden birds are lying low. DH told me I should have done some gardening yesterday when it was nice and made up work today, I'm kicking myself for not taking his advice!

Beautiful ice, it's amazing how many forms water can take. Fabulous stuff. Except when it's drizzle or sleet.

That ice looks amazing wilderness. Who knew ice could be that beautiful?!

I went on a quest to see a dipper this morning, after Errol posted about seeing one up thread. I didn’t have any luck, but ended up on the beach again where there were literally 1000s of oystercatchers. I saw some curlew too, so all in all it was a pretty good walk. Bloody freezing though! 🥶 😄

Anyone seeing anything in the cold this week? We had a robin on the fence, his feathers were so ruffled by the wind you couldn't see his red breast

The most exciting thing I have seen is a light smattering of snow 😂!

Weirdly I’m not seeing a huge amount in my garden. I kind of expected lots of birds to have come flocking to my feeders this week, but unfortunately not.

Our birdbath does seem to be in very high demand. DH keeps running out to defrost it, which is much appreciated by the sparrows and robins, but that’s pretty much all I’m seeing at the moment

Feeders are looking very busy this morning, but I haven’t seen any members of the tit family for days. Hopefully they’re just avoiding my garden because the wind is howling through it. I wouldn’t be out there either if I had a choice 😂

I did get a surprise visit from a song thrush, which was lovely to see after so many weeks of not seeing any.

We've had sleet and wind blasting the garden for about 3 days now, all of the birds are hiding in the hedge.

We had a big group of thrushes in the garden today.

May be the cold weather is bringing the thrushes into our gardens? 🤔

I have some holly bushes/trees on the edge of my garden and this year one of the mistle thrushes decided that was worth defending! As a result, I see the mistle thrush pretty much every day, but only see other types of thrushes if they’re foolish enough to try and steal some of the berries. There’s still some berries around now, so clearly Mr or Mrs Mistle Thrush has done an excellent job defending them!

It feels like we’re in a totally different season today compared to yesterday. The sun is shining and the first daffodils are flowering. I think they must be an early variety, but still it’s good enough to (almost) make me believe Spring is here!

Me too @Crazzzycat, I actually had my home office window open for a bit this afternoon. Walked after work and blackbirds were singing.

It’s lovely when we get a little preview of what’s to come @Wildernesstips

It sounds like my garden is alive this morning. So much birdsong! I also saw a redwing in the garden this morning, which was really the icing on the cake! Such pretty thrushes ☺️

Dreadful weather today, but I just spotted a little flock of long tailed tits on the fat ball feeder, so that makes it all ok. They are just so ridiculously adorable 🥰

It’s a lot milder now, and some sun last week. My crocuses came out overnight, and some of my tête-à-tête daffs are also blooming.
On Monday we treated ourselves to a riverside walk - a pair of dippers, the brief jewelled flash of a kingfisher and an enormous hare lolloping around in a field.
And some zephyrs of bumbarrels.

Saw a woodpecker on our walk this morning

Refreshing change

It’s amazing how fast things are changing at the moment. I went for a long walk this morning and the increase in bird song, especially compared to last week, was really noticeable.

I saw a small herd of wild ponies on my walk. Always a real treat to see them ☺️