Nature Notes: the 2022 edition

[ErrolTheDragon]

Happy New Year to all nature lovers!
The
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.

Wow, what a great collection!
My snowdrops are starting to come out, also cyclamen coum.

Snowdrops!
Finally something spring-like.

It was so foggy here this afternoon that I saw nothing, except a fat pigeon and a jackdaw - and I heard a woodpecker.

Apparently the collective noun for bushtits is a "cloud" which makes sense given their habits. But I also seen a "twittering." Either way they are lovely birds.

I had a terrible day at work yesterday. I was standing in my kitchen just staring out of the window and realised the bird feeders were empty ( again ) so I nipped out to fill them up. Ended up spending an hour outside tidying up the whole area. There was a blue tit that was happy to sit in the bush the whole time I was there. Really cheered me up and that hour in the fresh air doing something simple was just what I needed

Sorry to hear you had a tough day yesterday @Thirstquenching. I agree nature can be so soothing. I have my desk set up so that I have a perfect view of the bird feeders and wherever I get a bit tense during meetings, I find my eyes naturally wandering in that direction. Today there were lots of siskins, hanging up side down on the feeders 😊

I also watched a surprise invasion of corvids. Next door’s cat is a bit boisterous and loves to randomly leap and pounce on bit of grass. Sometimes that startles a magpie or a jackdaw...who will then call ALL their friends. A few weeks ago, I had at least a hundred jackdaws circling my garden. Today’s invasion was a bit more modest, just 4 magpies screaming their heads off, and about 20 jackdaws coming to have a look. The best thing is that the cat appears totally oblivious to the response he’s getting...far too busy playing 🐈

Went for a walk at a local loch today. Seen a buzzard, loads of red squirrels and dear. Very pleased with that. At home the birds are using my very modern birdbath ( its a Celebrations tin I buried in the mud a bit )

Todays Times nature notebook

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/slowly-but-surely-were-conjuring-the-spring-70wv6ql5z?shareToken=c0fae3f40bbe6f1ca2c124d0364a5363

I went birdwatching around the Wirral today, which is a bit further from home than I’d usually travel. The area didn’t disappoint - there were hundreds, if not thousands of geese, including my first ever sighting of an Egyptian Goose.

We just don’t get those kind of numbers further west. I get excited when I see a few Canada Geese on the salt marsh here! Consequently, my goose identification skills aren’t particularly well developed, but I think I saw a combination of Canada Geese, Greylag Geese and Pink Footed Geese (plus a single Egyptian one).

There were some people with big telephoto lenses getting very excited about something, so who knows, may be there were some more fancy geese around. I didn’t bother asking. Seeing more than one type of goose was exciting enough for me 😊

I've only once been birdwatching on the Wirral - we visited a reserve which has huge numbers of egrets and spoonbills. The latter were a surprise to me, I thought they were really exotic. I'm from north of there, we get lots of geese in various reserves and coastal areas as well as randomly on inland fields in winter. It can be hard to tell grey lags and pinkfeet apart if you see them separately, much easier if they're together and you can compare and contrast.

The first Egyptian geese I ever met were when I was at uni - the halls site had a quite large (artificial) lake frequented by various wildfowl. The Egyptian geese were particularly hissy and pissy!

It's funny how we sometimes take for granted the birds we have locally and forget they may be unusual elsewhere, even in places rich in other wildlife. A thread on this board a few years ago had regular contributions by someone in cornwall who regularly saw all sorts of fabulous birds and beasts but who was envious of me mentioning 'usual suspects' including shelduck - they're quite common hereabouts too, I'd assumed they were fairly ubiquitous in coastal areas but apparently not.

Todays walk was urban, in a nearby town - but even there, the lake in the park had a lot of tufted ducks and a cormorant, floating low in the water as they do, in addition to the normal mallards, moorhens and coots.

And back home in time to do some gardening, thanks to the lengthening days - I've only been back inside for ten minutes.

I agree that it can be very easy to not realise that what is common around where you live, may not be that common for other people (and vice versa!).

Last week, I mentioned rooks, which are weirdly absent from my local area. As I’ve seen them mentioned on this thread before as a common bird, that led me down a bit of a Google rabbit hole and I’ve now signed up to do a rook survey in early March! It turns out I’m not the only one who noticed their absence, so hopefully this survey will help to solve the mystery.

For today’s walk I went to a local Wildlife Trust reserve. It’s a tiny reserve, but has a great hide. On one side there are views to a large pond with mature trees around it. On the other side, views to a river and the open sea. There were lots of ducks in either direction. My favourite was a small flock of Goldeneye. I can’t quite remember when the last time was that I’d seen one of those, or if indeed I’d ever seen one at all!

Lots of mergansers around too, which I guess may be one of those birds that is fairly common around where I live, but not quite so plentiful elsewhere? It’s not unusual for us to see big flocks (100+) of them bobbing on the waves.

I live in easy reach of a large estuary and so I get pretty blase about geese, ducks and waders - I've seen brent geese in the last week or so, as well as wigeon, lapwing, teal and oystercatchers. We also get mergansers, but you really need your binoculars to see them.

I saw two hares and a muntjac yesterday when out with the dog. We are working hard on steadiness and fortunately she didn't see one hare, the other was a long way off and she was on-lead at the time, and I managed to stamp on her longline as the muntjac took off from about 15' in front of us.

We frequently see a few goosanders in the big rivers and various reserves, which are a type of merganser - do you mean them or red breasted merganser?

A really amazing thing just happened to me. I was out with the dog, and standing still while he sniffed something oh so fascinating.

I heard the unmistakeable thrum of hummingbird wings very close. The bird obviously thought my wide and very colourful headband was a flower or feeder. He hovered for a minute, realized his error, then flew off.

Quite the encounter.

How lovely!

Sorry, I meant red breasted mergansers Errol We get goosanders too, but not in those kind of numbers.

I’d love to have a close encounter with a hummingbird @LoveFall. That sounds lovely ☺️

That's what I thought but wanted to check - we don't get those here as far as I'm aware.

ErrolTheDragon

Really enjoying The Times Nature Notebook. Thanks 😊

I saw a kingfisher this morning on my dog walk.
Made up for the dog rolling in fox poo!

That’s a great spot. I’ve only seen a kingfisher once in my life! I think it’s another one of those birds that just doesn’t like my area very much 😔

I’ve been keeping an eye on the big puddle of water I discovered last week, which was full of bathing birds at that time. Things were a lot quieter today, but I did see a small flock of goldcrests splashing around. Also, some of the buds on the willows are starting to break here. Spring is close! (may be 😂)

I'm lucky to live near & row on a big river, so know a few places. I still stop mid-row if I see one though, which given that I'm in a six person crew doesn't always go down well!
Love seeing egrets & herons on the river too, we occasionally get visited by ospreys but I've never seen one.

I think my interest in the newly discovered puddle has hit obsession levels 😂 I snuck up to it really quietly today and saw, once again, a small flock of goldcrests having a bath. They were joined by a couple of chaffinches and a single, boldly coloured bullfinch. I never get tired of watching small “everyday” birds like that, so spent a good few minutes watching them with my binoculars ☺️

I also discovered that the puddle isn’t really a puddle, as the water is clearly bubbling up from underneath the soil, so it’s more like a very small - birdsized -spring. I’m not sure if the birds are that happy that I discovered it, but it’s become a fun stop on my daily walk!

Todays walk was just to the next village - signs of spring in the increasing number of snowdrops out, and a camellia in bloom. No crocuses yet.

DH had to go into work today, so I had to do a dawn walk with the dogs before going to work myself. Almost pitch dark when we started, and the tawny owls were calling down in the valley. It always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but in a nice way.

I saw a crow yesterday, flying ponderously up to a small tree, carrying what looked like a wood pigeon's egg in its beak.

Re puddles, I was walking through a wood with a gamekeeper recently and we passed what I thought was a large, deep and strangely located puddle. He told me, 'Thas a deer wallow. Roe, for the rut.'

I saw my first lambs of the year today and I've also seen a few daffodils flowering. No snowdrops or crocuses yet though.

I'm jealous of all the exciting bird spots, my highlight of the week bird wise was a bullfinch