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.

Wow, you are lucky to have access to a range of birdlife @Crazzzycat. We are too far from the coast to see much.

I'm off to Bude tomorrow and I'm very excited as I bought the FSC beach bundle id cards (birds, shells, sand dune plants and rockpools) so I my kids can identify what we find in the rock pools.

I hope you had a lovely time at the seaside @blackteaplease. Those ID cards look like a great way to involve kids in a bit of nature spotting.

I went back to the nature reserve I visited earlier this week. The golden plover were still hanging around in the area, looking very striking in their breeding plummage. I also saw lots of different butterflies, including my first orange tip of the year.

I adore guddling around in rock pools, but the coast near us is the shallowest sloping sand with no pools and hopeless for swimming. Some good dunes a bit further down the coast though , we've not been for quite a while now.

A pleasant stroll by the river this afternoon, some lovely cuckoo flowers, and the bluebells coming out well on the south facing slopes. Curlews heard but not seen again.

Today's walk along the canal featured peacock butterflies, sitting swans, the sound of reed warblers and the first duckling of the year. This evening we saw a couple of oystercatchers, we seem to get a few coming inland to breed.

8 ducklings today! And saw a lapwing/heard a peewit.

Do you mean a Green Plover Errol? I love lapwings. They’re such fun birds and make some of the most extraordinary noises. DH often jokes that they sound like they’re transmitting radio waves and claims that the tufts on their heads double up as an aerial. Such a vivid imagination!

I went to my local RSPB reserve yesterday, which was full of warblers. I didn’t manage to identify any apart from, of course, the ubiquitous chiffchaff. I really need to brush up on my warbler ID skills. According to the Twitter account for this reserve, it was a really exciting day for warbler-spotting. It pretty much passed me by, but I did have a lovely time looking at all the freshwater birds that can also be found there. Fortunately they’re a bit easier to ID!

Indeed... I'd not come across that name, but I'm delighted! I was thinking this afternoon that there's a perfect name for when you can hear but not see them, and a perfect name for when they're flying, so there really ought to be a name for when you can see their iridescent splendour when they're not flying.

Just now a female blackbird had a lovely splashy bath in the smallest of my barrel ponds. It's almost solid with vegetation so it's a nice depth. The patio is splattered and the water level is noticeably lower - the dog likes to drink from it too. Before that a pigeon had a good drink from one of the larger barrels. They're not much good for other wildlife but at least the birds enjoy them.

I'm loving the verges at the moment, they are so colourful with the last of the primroses, bluebells, cow parsley and garlic mustard and the odd red campion coming out. I also spotted an early purple orchid at the weekend.

The progression of flowers in spring into summer is always a joy. I think we're a bit behind you, no pink of red campion or herb Robert quite yet here. But the pink cherry blossom has come out in the last couple of days after being arrested by the frosts, so I'm getting a second helping of hanami now the white has pretty much gone over.

I think the campion must have been in a warm spot, it's only a few at the moment. I can see the herb Robert leaves but no flowers yet and something white that I think is lady's bedstraw but I cant id that from the car! Must talk a walk this evening to check.

There is lots of pink cherry blossom here too, it was drifting about in the wind yesterday like snow.

I love the blossom tress just in it is very pretty

There's some gorgeous apple blossom now, even lovelier than cherry imo.
Also the more delicate bird cherry is starting. We went to the 'bluebell valley' this morning, before the rain - the south facing slopes are wonderful now, and there are loads of marsh marigolds in the damp bottoms. Wild garlic flowers are also coming out now.

Silly question perhaps Errol, but is bird cherry the same as wild cherry? I thought we had bird cherry in our garden, but our tree flowered in late February, so I guess it must be something else. May be it’s not even a cherry 😬

I totally agree with you by the way that apple blossom is prettier than cherry. Pear blossom is possibly even prettier, but unfortunately that’s definitely on its way out here. The photo is of a pear tree I found a few weeks ago in an ancient woodland. It’s not a tree I often see growing in the wild, so I guess someone may have planted this one.

'bird cherry' is Prunus padus, which has sort of long clusters of flowers so it's quite distinctive. I think 'wild cherry' usually refers to wild plants of Prunus avium, which is the species which is cultivated... and confusingly 'avium' means bird.

Had alot of bumble bees in the garden this week. Love that sound it's very relaxing. Anyone noticed they seem huge this year!

Been for a walk in the woods and I heard lapwings. Seen a deer aswell. Good nature spotting day

We went to a hill we've not been to for ages. It's a bit forestry commission, but fabulous views. Leaves are showing on various willows, the fresh green of young beech and the more glaucous tones of hornbeam.

And as well as hearing curlew, we also heard our first cuckoo of the year, and saw the my first swallow ( DH said he and DD had seen some by the river a couple of days ago).

Look at this beauty

I've seen some house martins today which was lovely.

Today's Nature Notebook must be from somewhere a bit ahead of where I am. We're still in the whites of wood anemone, ramsons and blackthorn, still looking forward to the elder, hawthorn and campions.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/my-close-encounter-with-a-mad-april-hare-nznkb2ns5?shareToken=53248a41b05e109f17ad27aaee748a58

I returned to my local RSPB reserve today and was very excited to see a common sandpiper. In spite of living in an area that is (allegedly) frequented regularly by sandpipers, I’d never seen one until today. That’s my bird fix sorted for the week 😁

Plant wise, there were lots of cowslips around, as well as periwinkle, bugle herb and doves-foot cranesbill. I’m still making good use of Google Lens for flower ID. So far, I’ve only found one plant it couldn’t identify, so I’d say that’s pretty impressive.

Thanks for explaining the difference between wild cherry and bird cherry Errol. I think I naively assumed that because my cherry tree is so popular with birds, that it must be a bird cherry 🤦🏻‍♀️ Clearly it’s not!

I love the deer @Thirstquenching. What a magnificent animal to come across!

Happy Dawn Chorus Day!

Funnily enough, I didn’t get up at five to enjoy it, but am now sitting in my garden listening to bird song/ sound. There’s sparrows, jackdaws, collared doves and siskins, none of which are great singers. There’s some goldfinches flittering around and a little wren singing his little heart out. In the distance, I hear a chiffchaff and the lovely jazzy notes of a blackbird. I can only imagine what it must have been like at 5 this morning!

I didn't know 'dawn chorus day' was a thing...I can't say I'm sorry to have missed it this morning! Though DH and I do keep meaning to get up early and go to a nature reserve we never manage it.

The red campion is flowering on the canal bank now.

I think there’s probably an “international day” for most things Errol. I only found out about this one through Twitter, where people seem to love an “international day” or two

Yesterday, I went to one of the largest tern colonies in the U.K. The numbers are still building, with another 2000 expected to arrive over the next week or so. The noise was already deafening, so in a way I was quite glad I got there a bit early! DH is threatening to take me back at the start of June when the colony is supposed to be at its most active. I dread to think what that’s going to sound like!