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 still get kestrels - I think in more in the past few years than for quite a while.

I saw a grass snake today when walking the dogs. One of the dogs winded a pheasant: we heard it, but didn't see it, and I am sure she knew exactly where it was.

I just had a look for a source for the decline in kestrels, I've heard it from a few places. The RSPB said this "The kestrel is included on the Amber List of Birds of Conservation Concern due to the moderate decline of the UK breeding population and its adverse conservation status Europe-wide. The cause of the recent decline since 2005 has not been identified."

It's interesting that they say the recent decline has an unidentified cause as other places cite farming methods, increases in predators, loss of habitat and use of agricultural chemicals.

We had a pair of Bullfinches in the garden yesterday. We knew they were around but they hardly ever appear singly and never as a pair that we have seen. Lovely 😊

Gorgeous.
Letting the dog out just now, I could hear a chiffchaff among the other birdsong. There are lots of blackbirds in the area so there's some good singing.

Lovely walk this morning. This little patch of wood anemones was a highlight.

Today's walk was on a local track we rarely use, and then footpath we'd never realised existed by a small brook. The most notable sightings weren't exactly 'nature' but magnificent all the same - an unexpected flock of peacocks and a (farmed) herd of red deer, including a stag with splendid set of antlers - too early to be this years set, I think, though it seems a bit late to still have last years.

Had a walk today too . The hedgerows were full of singing.
Further on we saw lambs again.
3 heron , 2 cormorants, a grebe , a hare , more sheep, highland cattle , deer , and some unusual breeds of sheep.

Wood anemones here too, and lots of bluebells. Ds2 and I had a good look around a pond for frogspawn and we built a den in the woods. Lovely.

Lots of butterflies about today, mostly peacocks but also a small tortoiseshell which I rescued from our shed. Went for a walk which was all primroses, birdsong, and cock pheasants shouting their heads off to stake out their breeding territories.

An unusual sight today on my neighbours fence. I'm convinced it was a parrot. Pale grey back with a yellow collar and a hooked beak.

I saw a pair of goldfinches today, and a frog. Wood pigeons nesting noisily in the holly tree, starlings in the roof space. Frogspawn is getting wriggly!

We live in the north in a forest. This week there’s been a big increase in owl calls. They are typical tawny owls and at least 3 coming from the garden. The voles have reappeared in the garden and the deer are back in the forest.
We live beside what the locals have called butterfly grove due to all the butterflies and the neighbour has beehives, as well as goats, chickens etc. We’ve had a lot of honeybees visiting our garden and a few sitting in our house ,although they did give us a fright the first year we moved here when at least 20 ended up flying through our door, they frequently visit and we’ve never been stung). We have had massive amounts of butterflies in the last week (brown and orange painted ladies maybe?) and quite a few bumble bees.
The red kites frequently fly overhead here but there’s one that always dives for our cat when she sits on the roof (dormer so one storey up) and they’ve just made a reappearance so the cat is now not allowed out the window on the roof again. All of our herbs and fruit plants have came alive again and have green shoots which is good and the spiders are making a big resurgence.

I'd have thought it was a bit early for painted ladies - I believe they mostly migrate to the U.K. later in the year after breeding further south? But last year there were loads arrived, so maybe as it's been a mild winter some have managed to overwinter. (I'm just speculating, I'm not a butterfly expert!)

There are definitely small tortoiseshell and peacocks where I am (NW England)

They definitely look like painted ladies but I’m not expert either. We usually have thousands descend into summer but I never see any this early. It’s been a strange year for wildlife around here, I’m not sure if it’s due to the milder winter we’ve had.

Saw this heron on a walk at the end of my road. Sorry about the rubbish photo from my phone

Quite a few butterflies yesterday, too fast to identify but a very bright green one and one that looked almost totally dark brown or black. Also intermittently kept hearing an odd 'burring' sound and found out from YouTube it's a woodpecker pecking!

Apparently the more noise woodpeckers make the better the breeding partner they will be .

That is a good picture @Brunelofbrio

Pale grey back with a yellow collar and a hooked beak.

Sounds like a cockateil - there are quite a few parrots, cocktails, budgies living and breeding wild int he UK now. I don't know how they get through the winters, but they seem to manage.

Today I saw a common toad (first I've seen for years) and we (dogs and self) also disturbed a small hawk on the ground. As it rose up another joined it from the trees and they flew off together - don't know what they were, sadly. Didn't get a good enough look - almost ending up with a nostril full of talons seems to have dented my powers of perception!

Apparently the more noise woodpeckers make the better the breeding partner they will be

The one in the woods just beyond us must be shagtastic!

Lots of butterflies today - peacocks, and I think both small tortoiseshell and a comma. There was a white one too, which at this time of year I'll guess was a female orange tip.

There have been lots of Red Admirals flying around today. We thought we may have heard a Sparrowhawk which nested in the garden next door last year and I am currently watching a Tree Creeper on a tree in the garden - we've only seen two before in 4 years of living here.

My robins nest has an egg in.

There will be more over next few days. How exciting!!!

I saw a crow with white wings today !

Today we saw 3 Canada geese coming into land in a field by the canal as we stood on the bridge (towpath is a bit too narrow for our liking, unfortunately) and also spotted an oystercatcher. We're 15-20 miles from the coast, a bit closer to a large estuary so we do see a few birds more associated with the shore from time to time.