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 went for a long hike today and came across an adorable wild pony foal. He was the most playful, curious little thing and I’m sure would have skipped up to us if one of the more sensible adult ponies hadn’t intervened.

Also, after yesterday’s excitement of seeing two redstarts, I...saw three of them today. I always thought that redstarts were a woodland species, and clearly where I went today is not a woodland🤔 (before anyone asks, they came pretty close, so I’m 100% certain they were redstarts, not stonechats or anything else)

Its all very quiet around here just now! Things have got very busy around here so haven't been on many walks but I have been enjoying the wild birds in the garden. I've added a bird bath and I've started making my own fat mix and refilling empty coconut shells. All the young birds have started coming to the garden, its lovely to see

We've been getting some youngsters including goldfinches. I keep meaning to find this thread, to note the newly emerging plants. Yesterday we walked locally on a perfect summers evening - sunny, with enough breeze to keep flies away - with meadowsweet scenting the air along the lane.

We've had baby blue tits and sparrows on the feeders and a house martin family have built a nest across my sons bedroom window.

Quite a few baby birds here too. Today I saw a spotty baby robin, juvenile blue tits, blackbirds and jackdaws (so many jackdaws here!).

But what really caught my eye when I glanced out of the window earlier today, was a drab brown bird with a long tail. It didn’t look like any of my other visitors, so I thought it must be a juvenile bird of some sort. That was until it flicked its tail and I saw a very bright flash of orange - a female redstart! What’s that doing in my garden?! 🤯

Had a lovely walk at a nature reserve today. My ds managed to feet a great tit from his hand. We seen baby robins, blue dragonflies and lots of different butterflies

Lovely!
We're down in the exmoor region. The heather is coming out here, lots of bird and insect life, quite a few ponies around but not spotted any deer this time.

This week I’ve had both a red kite and a chough fly over my garden. The chough in particular was a surprise. There’s a fair few of them in the hills around my town, but as far as I know that’s where they usually stay.

I was reading in a bird watching magazine that people used to believe that choughs would come into your house, steal your money and set the house on fire. The red beak was, apparently, a clear give away that they’re a bunch of pyromaniacs. It’s extraordinary what people used to believe.

That chough superstition is ridiculous!

I've not been out and about much so my wildlife observations are from my garden. I saw an elephant hawk-moth for the first time in the long grass. The colours are amazing.

Blackberries in our garden our starting to ripen the blackbirds keep trying to steal them. Hopefully there will be some left for us 😉 I've still got a glut of last year's in the freezer, never got round to making jam. I'm daydreaming of the autumn nip in the air (autumn my favourite season) and slow cooker stews and blackberry and apple crumble not that we will be affording to put the oven on by then a friend of ours has an orchard and gives us apples each autumn

On Friday we found this little guy basking peacefully on a sunlight coastal path.

The big butterfly coun is open, is anyone taking part this year?
bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org/

Yes we do it every year! Looking forward to it!

Saw a lot of these the other day and thought they were beautiful.

Are they some sort of mallow?

Yesterday while working in the front garden, I had a delightful juvenile robin in attendance. I put a little dish of mealworms and some water on the rockery, the former was empty this morning so I've refilled it. I'd better take it up tonight, having belatedly remembered they're not very good for hedgehogs, we've once seen one on our drive in the evening. The water can stay though.

Are they some sort of mallow?
I think so. They come up in the same place every year.

There seem to be thousands of grasshoppers around this year. Lots of noise from the grass.

I found a bird nest today. Based on size and shape, my guess is that it belonged to a family of blue tits.

I like the liberal use of sheep wool, but it made me wonder what more urban blue tits use for insulating their nests. Do they use feathers or something else? 🤔

I'm not sure. That one looks lovely and warm.

We've got lots of young birds now. In addition to the young robin (maybe a different one, on the open tray feeder in the back garden), there are blackbirds, bluetits and lots of goldfinches plus some adults - I think I counted 9 juvenile goldfinches yesterday. I'm hoping one was the poor little mite who crashed into our patio door and fell into one of the barrel ponds. I was able to don marigolds and fish it straight out - it seemed shocked and stunned but not visibly injured so I thought minimum intervention would be least traumatic and put it on the lawn next to the back border near lots of cover and the trees the birds perch in a lot. Then retreated and kept an eye on it (standing on a chair in the kitchen with binoculars) - it sat there quite a while but then was gone. (No cats or predatory birds around so it must have managed to move.

We've got some decals on the windows but think I'd better put up some more.

A pair of greenfinches today as well.

Lots of changes happening at my local -mud & gravel - beach.

The sandwich terns have returned en masse, as have the curlews. Yesterday a big flock of them flew right over my head 🥰 I’ve spotted a few whimbrel, who pass through at this time of the year, as well as common sandpipers and ringed plovers.

It’s lovely to see the beach come back to live again, after months of mainly gulls!

I've not been out much recently unfortunately I was involved in a road traffic accident so I've been at home recovering from my injuries. I have however seen loads of butterflies and bees enjoying the lavender in the garden and as always the birds using their feeding station is always a pleasure to watch

Oh bad luck, I hope you're on the mend? Wildlife close to home is a consolation when you're grounded.

Bad luck, @Thirstquenching - that was a horrible thing to happen.

Is it just here or has this been an epic year for grasshoppers? We regularly walk past a field which is alive with the sound of them.

A big flock of redwing showed up in my garden today. Winter is well and truly here 🥶

It is, isn't it? Very hard frosts here.

I lost track of this thread for too long...we've jumped from grasshoppers to redwing!
A highlight of the year was a holiday on the Norfolk Broads in September, highly recommended for nature lovers. Good sightings of many various birds inc kingfishers and marsh harriers, and DD and I got quite a close glimpse of an otter when we hired a canoe.