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.

Starting to see the snowdrops appearing aswell

I'm hoping for frogs in our lockdown pond this year.

I now have a theory about how the bat got in. We had a window cleaner at our building last week. He actually cleaned the balcony glass doors and clear railings.

We have a quite large dark green patio umbrella standing up in the corner stored for spring (not open). DH brought it in and left it on the floor in our second bedroom so it was out of the window cleaner's way.

My theory is the bat was hibernating in there and was woken up by the warm temperature in the house. And then flew into the living room.

I favour the umbrella theory.

The only other possibility is that the little heater we have under our hummingbird feeder glows red as it is made of red plastic. Apparently migrating bats can be attracted to red light.

The umbrella is back outside!

I cycle around the countryside over here (ROI) and observe a lot of nature.

On Sunday I did an 80 mile ride into the local National Park. Plenty of bird life to be seen, dunnocks and wrens in the hedges, a raven watching me from an outcrop near the source of the Liffey, red kites wheeling overhead as I climbed up a mountain, goldfinches and tits in a village garden and rooks and jackdaws heading home to roost.

Over here we don't have your usual black (carrion) crow, we have plenty of hooded crows. They're grey backed with black heads and wings.

I pissed off a flock of ewes with their lambs when I stopped to take their picture. One of ewes started bleating at me and trotted over to the empty feeding trough, her lambs skipping around her. The rest of the flock, on hearing the racket she was making, came over to see if I was going to produce a bag of sheep nuts. They were not impressed when I skedaddled off on the bike.

Morning all, I thought I'd share the view from my desk at home. Today the rooks are using it as a perch but we often get buzzards and occasionally woodpeckers on there.

Does anyone forage?

We are fairly new but what we lack in experience we make up for in enthusiasm 😂

I'm impatiently waiting on wild garlic to appear. Wild garlic and cheese scones are one of life's simple pleasures!

Elderflower cordial was a hit last year as was dandelion shortbread and of course the usual apple and blackberry crumbles etc, a friend has an orchard so we always get a glut of apples!

Home grown wise we had strawberries, potatoes, broad beans, snow peas and courgettes last year hopefully the same this year

I forage a bit in a very casual fashion. My mother taught me about sloes, blackberries, chestnuts, hazelnuts and elderflowers and berries, passed down from her mother, and her mother, back to the bloody Stone Age I should think.

Wild garlic is hard to find round here (though I have a friend who grows it on purpose). There are some mushrooms I am confident about picking, but parasols (which I love) make me sick.

No exciting wildlife news really. Lots of wigeon on the river, the usual kestrel about who lives over one of the local shoots, and I saw a bloody great buzzard on Sunday.

We get masses of wild garlic in this region, but I'm (probably irrationally) put off it by the numbers of dogs happily bounding through it at times. (For similar reasons all my herbs are grown in pots, fortunately my dog is short.)

In the Vancouver area we have lots of (invasive ) blackberry vines. You have to be quick or Southeast Asian immigrants will get them all. They seem to love them and will dress head to foot in protective clothing and use ladders.

I admire them. I pick gingerly around the outside. They make lovely jelly.

I spotted the first crocus in my garden 🥳

Also, this rather lovely camellia flower. It’s such a bright colour that, against that dark foliage, it looks like it’s glowing.

I saw some daffodils today - I was driving past so couldn't get a pic but there were three or four out and others opening.

Spring is springing... Though no doubt winter will come round for another go.

We went up to a big estuary today; when we arrived the tide was racing in noisily across the beach. We'd been told you couldn't outrun the tide here (they have loud sirens to warn people!) but we'd never seen it quite like this before. We walked up the estuary, watching the swirling waters gradually flooding the salt marshes. A 10 metre tide is a force of nature all right!

My earliest daffodil varieties are flowering in my garden since last Friday. I think they're "February Gold", they're living up to their name.

Today, a brilliant blue streak of a kingfisher on the canal, before she (I think) perched in a tree for quite a while. Canals are very good for them, I think - constant water level so no risk of nests being washed out, and there must be plenty of fish. We saw someone land a pike near there a few days ago, he was taking part in a longest pike competition.

You were lucky, Errol - I've not seen a kingfisher for several years (ever since the local anglers bolloxed up the pond in the local woods).

Someone mentioned upthread about Egyptian geese. I saw 40 or 50 today, busily occupied eating what looked like young barley. I'd never seen so many together before, but I didn't have a chance to count them properly as I was passing in the car.

I spotted a barn owl as I was driving home last night. I always find them slightly eerie

This little guy sat in this tree for ages this morning while I was baking with my son. Sorry not the best photo I had to zoom right in

There's frogspawn in the mountain streams over here. The gorse/furze/whins (use your own dialect word) is blossoming too, it has a lovely coconut scent.

We've got a fair amount of gorse out here too. I love the scent on a sunny day. Today we just went to the park in town - the gorgeous scent there is sweet box, and the first of the crocuses are emerging to join the snowdrops. The heavy rain has the river flowing fast, even against the rising tide.

Today in a rather overgrown 'sensory garden' part of a park, an unseasonally early red campion blooming to add an unexpected little splash of pink.

I spent my morning training my dog with a gamekeeper, and we saw a hare, a buzzard and a kestrel.

There are snowdrops out everywhere now, and the leaves of the bluebells are pushing through.

You’d think that with siskins being one of the most frequent visitors on my feeders, that my town would be full of them. The truth is however that I’ve never seen actually seen a siskin “in the wild”.

That was until today, when I spotted a big clump of hazel, covered in catkins and surrounded by birds. A quick look through the binoculars confirmed that that was where the siskins were hiding! There were at least 20 of them and quite a few goldcrests and some lovely bright male bullfinches too. A riot of colour 🥰

The wild cherry tree that is growing in my garden started flowering overnight. It’s caught the attention of a group of bullfinches - 4 males, 2 females - who came to strip the buds and flowers off the tree.

They were closely followed by a bird I’ve not seen in my garden before; a tiny little goldcrest. I keep a list of all the birds I’ve seen in my garden, but of course I can’t find it at the moment ☹️

Witch hazel blooming on the path beside our building. Lovely and exotic looking.

The dog and I watched some juncos with their odd kind of dipping flight today. They seem to fly in u shapes up and down.