Nature Notes: the 2022 edition

[ErrolTheDragon]

Happy New Year to all nature lovers!
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Please join us to add your observations throughout the year. Urban or rural, there's always something going on throughout the year, even if it's a bit quiet right now.

I agree Errol. Someone tried to get us to sign up to a rare bird alert-service that is run by some website. DH and I were talking about it later and agreed that it sounded like the perfect way to turn a fun & spontaneous pass time into an unhealthy obsession.

We saw people jump out of their cars, run to the viewpoint from which the albatross had been seen and then run straight back shouting “there’s nothing there”. But what about the hundreds of gannets, puffins and other auks that were on that cliff, building nests, squabbling with each other and making up with other birds. How can you be a bird lover and not find that interesting for at least a minute?! I don’t know, I just think twitchers must be wired differently 😂

I've been to Bempton cliffs, it's an amazing sight, so many birds in one place.

Today's nature spot from my pond. A broad bodied chaser emerging

Wow, that's a great photo too! I noticed a couple of damselflies at the weekend.

Not exactly nature but very pleased that my white and pink clematis have eventually started to grow together. Its been two years

That's lovely. I've only got pink, it smells gorgeous, soft vanilla.

Lovely clematises @Thirstquenching . I have a pink one too, but mine’s almost finished flowering. It was spectacular when it was in full bloom.

I went for a walk in the valley next to mine last night. It’s a National Nature Reserve, although I’m not entirely sure what it was designated for. Possibly it’s plant life, rather than it’s animal life. As I’ve confessed before I don’t know a lot about plants so it just all looked incredibly green to me. Ferns, lichens and mosses absolutely everywhere.

I heard my first cuckoo. In fact I think there were two on opposite sides of the valley, so there was a lot of noise being made by them. We also came across a woodpecker and several grey wagtail. I don’t know if it’s the light or the time of the year, but they were looking incredibly yellow. Gorgeous little things ☀️

Yesterday while having lunch by a bend in a river during our walk, a kingfisher streaked along it.
Near the start of the walk, we came across some ecology students with white trays full of samples from which they were carefully extracting and counting every minibeast. Lots of mayfly and stonefly larvae, tiny shrimps etc, so nice clean water. It reminded of us of how we used to enjoy taking an ice cream tub, a net, an identification chart and an interested small child for a good guddle in a stream Our best find, on exmoor, was an enormous dragonfly nymph, we momentarily thought it was a frog it was so big!

We came across a fledgling sitting on the road yesterday. We watched it for a minute, but didn’t see any signs of a parent bird, or signs that the fledgling had any intentions of leaving the road anytime soon.

I don’t like messing with fledglings, but we decided that the chances of it getting hit by a car were pretty high, so launched a quick rescue mission. A few minutes later, the fledgling was safely deposited in a hedgerow next to the road, where hopefully its parents managed to find it shortly afterwards 🤞

We walked along the canal today for the first time in a while. Lots of reed or sedge warblers heard but not seen, and a lovely big hare running around in a field on the other side.

If they were really loud, they were probably sedge warblers! I’m always amazed by how much noise those little birds can make.

It appears baby bird season is upon us. The sparrow colony that lives in next door’s completely overgrown fuschia hedge like to drop off their fledglings on the top of my cherry tree. Sometimes there are so many of them that we joke that’s it’s a sparrow day care centre!

The young sparrows just sit on top of the tree, looking completely gormless for long periods of time. Today they were joined by a baby robin, who looked a lot more animated in comparison, possibly because it was accompanied by one of its parents who was giving it a guided tour of all the feeders that are hanging in that tree. I don’t often see the adults helping themselves to food, but kibbled peanuts are clearly approved robin baby food 😊

I've spent a lovely few hours in the gardens today, weeding and putting in bedding plants. Not going to pretend to be a gardener, far from it. But I do enjoy a good tidy up and introducing colour. This may be a silly question but are snails considered pests in a garden? I have so many.

Also topped up all the bird feeders ( the eat me out of house and home ) I do get alot of pleasure from watching all the birds in the garden although they do make a mess. The dropped seeds grow like crazy and really clog the ground. Any tips would be appreciated! But nothing better than watching the birds with my morning coffee. They really lift the spirits 😊

I’d say snails are a pest @Thirstquenching, or at least they are in my garden! Blackbirds eat snails, so they’re a good bird to encourage in your garden.

I’m not sure about what to do about the bird mess either. It’s a real pain ☹️

Thrushes are good for eating snails, though the way they bash them open on paving slabs etc can be a bit disconcerting.

As for seeds growing under the bird table, the simple solution is to use husked sunflower seeds, which don't germinate and don't leave mess. They seem very popular with most birds.

Very excited I've just spotted a pair of gold finches in my garden sitting on the shed roof. I've never had these in my garden!

If you get those sunflower hearts, you may end up with a whole charm of goldfinches, they love them. There are special feeders for Niger seed which they also like but IME it's not necessary.

I agree that sunflower hearts are pretty much the ultimate bird food. But whether it attracts goldfinches is, in my experience, at least partially dependent on what your neighbours are putting in their feeders. My goldfinches have a steady supply of nyjer seeds down the road. They won’t come to mine, unless I give them the same food! Welsh finches know what they want and where to get it! 😂

They’re a lovely bird to have in your garden @Thirstquenching ! I found that once goldfinches had started coming into my garden, other finches soon followed. So who knows, you may end up with some other new visitors ☺️

The wild roses are coming out now.
A few days ago walking by the canal quite near where it ends in the town, we passed by a perfectly linear swan family ploughing through the duckweed or whatever it is.

Lovely swan picture Errol 🥰

My garden was fledgling central today. Lots of young sparrows were dumped on the cherry tree by their parents, two baby robins sitting on the bird bath and so many fledgling blackbirds that DH were left wondering what was going on. We thought we only had one pair nesting in the garden, but considering the number of fledglings that appeared today, that seems a bit unlikely!

I’m sure this shouldn’t really excite me, but I’ve just seen a jay on my bird feeders. I’ve not seen those in my garden before 😊

They're reckoned to be rather elusive, so why not be excited? I was pleased to spot one in a wood on Sunday. A few years ago I had a parent and two fledged offspring all busily gorging themselves at my feeders, that was quite special!

Oh I thought they might be really common and a bit of a pest in gardens in other parts of the country 😄 I was definitely excited. I think I’ve only seen one or two so far this year. Unfortunately for Mr or Mrs Jay my feeders are completely jackdaw proof, which also makes them jay proof. It’s a bit of a shame as I would have liked to have seen it again, but that’s the price you pay I guess!

Anyone else struggling to keep up with feeding the wild birds just now?? They are eating me out of house and home. Its nice to see but I can't keep up 🙂

My feeders are relatively quiet at the moment @Thirstquenching . I fill up my feeders roughly once every three days, apart from my mixed seed feeder which always has sparrows attached to it (and jackdaws throwing themselves at it 🤦🏻‍♀️). Do you get a lot of bigger birds, like starlings and collared doves?

I went for a long walk up a steep hill today and just when I sat down for a short break, a common redstart landed on the wall right next to me.

A couple of years ago, I developed a bit of an obsession for these birds and would regularly go to my local nature reserve in the hope of seeing one. I wasn’t particularly successful, so to have one land right next to my head and sit there for a while was pretty exciting. I hardly dared to breathe, in case I’d scare him off! 😁

Yeah I got alot of starlings, sparrows, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, robins and for the first time the other day gold finches