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, that's early ... though obviously depends where you are. I hope we don't have any here for a while. My cosmos are ridiculously late, some are tall with lots of buds but still not in flower. The ones which are out are lovely. I don't want to lose them yet.

Fife. East Coast Scotland

Ah, the chilly side. I used to live in North Yorkshire, I reckon on average first frost there could be about a month ahead of where I am now on the other side of the Pennines. DH said it might be getting down to about 3°C last night, but it looks like it's clouded over and getting milder again here.

The salt marsh is rapidly changing here. Two weeks ago it was only of interest to the resident lapwing population, but now it’s completed covered in all kinds of ducks, wading birds, herons and egrets. I love it when it’s bustling with life like that. I’m sure I’ll soon get tired of the constant quacking (why are ducks so noisy?!) but am enjoying it for now 😄

It’s definitely still very mild here too. Quite a few butterflies in my garden this morning! Frost is a relatively rare occurrence for us though, here in the balmy west 😎

I've just driven 7 miles down country lanes in the pouring rain and there are frogs absolutely everywhere tonight. I've never seen so many of them.

Got out for a walk along the coastal path. Seen wag tails, a heron and curlews

Nice photo Thirstquenching Lots of wagtails on the coast here too - most of them pied, but closer to the river some grey wagtails too. I always think they are one of the worst named birds. They’re such a bright yellow that calling them grey doesn’t really do them justice!

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone, but I recently bought a book on birds nests that’s illustrated by a botanical illustrator. It’s more paintings than text although it does have some interesting facts about each nest too. It’s just so beautiful and gives an interesting insight into how clever birds are. It’s called “Nests” by Susan Ogilvy. Just thought I’d mention it in case anyone is looking for Christmas presents…

Todays find on our walk

I saw that nests book in my local bookshop, its beautiful.

I managed to get out for a walk today, lots of mushrooms, hawthorn berries and bracken turning brown but not much wildlife to report

This is a beauty!

Wow @Thirstquenching those are some awesome fungi. Whereabouts did you see those? I've only seen field mushrooms on my local walks here in Devon.

They were just off the path on a waterfall walk we did

Yesterday I found some mushrooms hiding inside a tree hole. They looked like a mini art installation!

If you’re looking for mushrooms in Devon, I saw the most impressive variety while getting astoundingly lost around Lustleigh Cleave last week. I was most impressed by a fine crop of both panther caps and destroying angels ☠️ on an innocent looking grass verge outside some picture postcard cottages 😆

Ooh, since I’ve just found this thread, I also have my first short eared owl to report!!!!! Southern fringes of Dartmoor.

Owl sighting are pretty special @crackofdoom! 🥰 Welcome to the thread

The local hill that I can see from my garden. I love this hill it literally changes everyday depending on the season, weather, light etc this was the other day and that was cloud cover. Never seen it like that before

There’s a constant stream of blue tits and great tits visiting my garden feeders today.

I’m also very excited to see some winter visitors return to my garden. Earlier this week, a small flock of redwing came to inspect my holly tree. Today I had the first visit of the season from a male blackcap.

I’m excited, even though I have a feeling it won’t be long before I see the first confrontation between the local robin and some of these new visitors. Both robins and blackcaps are so incredibly bossy that in previous years I’ve had to resort to having multiple fastball feeders in an attempt to keep the peace! Hopefully they’ll behave themselves this year 😂

My feeders are very busy with blue tits, great tits, sparrows and starlings. They are eating me out of house and home! Just if anyone is interested Lidl was selling a box of 35 fat balls for £3.99 and £1.99 for 2 kilo sack of seed

Ooh thanks for the tip off on the bird feed. Our feeders have suddenly been stripped by visitors in the last few days.

I miss seeing mountains. It's been 16 years since I lived in sight of one.

We've been a couple of times in the last week or so down the coast to an extensive sand dune system - marram grass of course on the seaward dunes, then characteristic 'scrub' including the distinctive amber/orange berries of sea buckthorn, and then woodland, mostly pine and birch, with the latter still green and gold. There were still a few flowers out - white campion, evening primrose, centaury and harebells. And lots of fungi of various sorts - I'm no good at ID'ing them.

My garden is alive with birds just now and they are loving the seed and fat balls. They are very entertaining to watch. No more wildlife sightings due to being off work sick. So just what I can see from my window for now

We have a wagtail that sits on top of the metal chimney tapping at its reflection. You can hear the taps all the way through the house!

I’m sure I saw a seal yesterday! I was out with my binoculars looking at some diving ducks, when I saw a nose appear out of the water, followed by a head. I only got a glimpse and my eyesight isn’t the best, but I’m still fairly certain it was one 🦭