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 have a nosy neighbour!

Sorry, I don’t know why Mumsnet / my phone is insisting on rotating all my pictures all of a sudden 🙄

Hello @AnneKipanki

Tiny Dog and a special guest appearance of a heron on our walk this morning!

You might have to zoom in a bit

We have a couple of nuthatches.

They always remind me of Batman and Robin.

Oh, I get that if I try to take a photo for an MN post on my iPad too, Spudlet, though attaching ones I've taken earlier are fine.

TinyDog doesn't look tiny if I zoom in, Womble.

Thanks Errol for the lapwing info. I had a feeling they did but hadn't seen it before.

Have a photo of some fungi from a week or two ago.

When you zoom in on Tiny Dog, that's the size she is in real life, Errol

Farm animals

Love lapwings - but there are none here!

I've not been out yet today but the garden is busy with birds: a wren, two dunnocks (which I'm hoping might be scouting for a nesting site), a song thrush, a couple of argumentative blackbirds and a flurry of goldfinches on the feeders.

Am now wondering whether to replace the blue tit nest box. Last year's was attacked by a woodpecker.... I'd planned to get one of the boxes that's reinforced with metal at appropriate places but can't do so at the moment - so it's a normal one or nothing. I think it'd better be nothing. We seem to have a lot of woodpeckers....

The kite was just here again! Very happy. Also heard skylarks on today’s run. 👍

Skylarks are the most wonderful sound. I guess I'll have to make do with Vaugh Williams this year.

We rang the changes on our walk today, through the woods and on to —trespass—the golf course. (Can I say, without offending any golfers, what a waste of space they are? Acres of beautiful grass,(which little dog bloody loved) little woodlands, rough wild areas.For people to hit balls on.) We saw three jays bombing about, loads of woodland birds, squirrels and a stoat. The woods are carpeted with wild garlic, celandine and wood anemones. The weekend looks to be nice, we will walk across the river past the woodland school. Their bird feeders are empty, so I’ll top them up.

I got video of the skylarks here last week.
Hoping with the weather perking up again I can get back out this weekend and enjoy them.

@Spudlet what a great photo!

I have seen two deer in my local park, we live in the edge of a fairly big city and I've never seen them there before (although I know they are in the surrounding countryside) I'm torn between being delighted and worried about them near roads!

The primroses are out here too and it's lifting my heart to see them. There was a beautiful bank of them near where I grew up and I remember seeing them in the spring.

The bird song here is incredible, I can hear a wood pigeon warbling away right now but the blackbirds have also been loud and argumentative...

Wild primrose

The robins built a nest in my bag of compost.

I only opened it yesterday!!

That's your gardening plans up the Swanee, GuyFawkes

Yup!! Luckily our local nursery bis taking phone payments and dropping off so I can get more next week.

Also , saw a hare yesterday. The photo is rubbish though

Saw two peacock butterflies today, but didn’t have my phone to hand either time 🤦‍♀️ They were beautiful though! Also think I may have seen the kite again (it was taking off and I was at a funny angle so couldn’t get a proper look), disturbed a pair of partridges when I ran past their hiding place, saw a muntjac out of the window and a skylark flying over the house. And a cheeky starling dipping through the eaves to nest in the attic - again. Every year we say we’ll block the hole and every year we leave it too late... 🙄

Te kites here are getting desperate.

Very low over houses and (I think) attempting to scavenge crow eggs/chicks - we are seeing them getting mobbed by crows frequently.

I'm envious of all those of you who still see kestrels, they are getting increasingly rare now there are more kites and buzzards (and I expect destruction of hedgerows has a lot to answer for too). 20 years ago we used to see so many that my daughter stopped commenting on them.

We see a good number of kestrels hereabouts, I didn't know their numbers were declining.