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.

www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/birds/herons-egrets-spoonbill-and-crane/grey-heron#:~:text=Herons%20nest%20in%20colonies%20called,about%20one%20and%20half%20months.

I was quite surprised when at a WWT place waiting for a murmeration of starlings, they were preceded by several herons arriving to roost in the nearby trees. They look far too big, and I suppose we expect they'd make waterside nests lie swans.

There's a reserve on the Wirral which when we visited a while ago had trees stuffed full of little white egrets and some spoonbills. Another reserve nearer us sometimes gets huge numbers of cormorants, which can leave the trees quite white with guano.

We walked along the nearby little river valley today. The celandines and wood anemones are now joined by a lovely patch of marsh marigolds in a boggy hollow, and the bluebells are starting to flower on the south facing slopes.

I went for a coastal walk last weekend and seen some nesting gannets on the cliff above they were so noisy. It was a beautiful day

Ooh, I love gannets @Thirstquenching!

I haven’t yet made it to the coastal RSPB reserve near me, but apparently the first puffins have been spotted. I’m planning to have a look in a few weeks’ time, when they’ll definitely be nesting.

Herons in trees surprised me too, the first time I saw that. But after many trips to what I think must be the same RSPB reserve on the Wirral Errol mentions above, I’m almost used to it. Their heronry is massive! These days it has great white egrets, as well as little white egrets, although I’m not sure if they’re actually nesting there, or just “hanging out” with the other egrets, herons and spoonbills.

We get the occasional great white egret at an rspb nearer us, along with plenty of little ones, sometimes spoonbills and quite often some avocets.

I've forgotten the name of the one on the Wirral, it's a bit of a trek for us - we went there after visiting the Ness botanic gardens once a few years ago. Must go again. Also want to check the tide times and go to Hilbre island again - really quite an unexpected gem so close as the crow (or other bird of your choice) flies to Liverpool!

I’d never even heard of Hilbre Island. Sounds like I should add it to my list of places to explore! 🤓

Another unexpected fact about Liverpool.. apparently if there are very strong westerly winds in the autumn, it’s not usual for hundreds of Storm Petrels to be blown out of Liverpool Bay and end up in the city! It’s supposed to be the best place in the U.K. to see the rare and elusive Leah’s Storm Petrel 🤯

It's easy not to spot Hilbre, and it's not obvious from most maps that it's just a walk across the sands at low tide. Good place for seal spotting - the first time we went we very unexpectedly found a half grown pup in a sea cave.

Todays new seasons flowers were Herb Robert, greater stitchwort and some sweet rocket.

Went for a walk round a nature reserve today. Seen loads of bluetits, coalition, a chaffinch and a robin. My ds took porridge oats and they were all following us. He put his hand out and the robin hovered above his hand, he was over the moon!

My ds 10 seems to have been bitten by the bird watching bug he asked to go to the local rspb bird reserve today where we sat for a while in the hides and on the benches around the woods. He took a notepad and pen and did a tally chart for all the different birds he seen. He is a very reluctant writer so this was massive for him and I was so proud! When we were walking back to the car he said he had really enjoyed himself ❤

How lovely @Thirstquenching, sounds like the perfect outing to me.

I've spotted some wild garlic and the ancient wood near me is carpeted with bluebell leaves. It won't be long until the flowers are out. I love seeing the bluebells.

DH spotted a pipistrelle foraging in our garden last night and we've definitely been having a hedgehog visitor as they've been leaving a trail of poo across the garden.

I also went on a walk through the woods this weekend and saw masses and masses of wood anemones. If I remember correctly, they’re a sign that a woodland is old, or at least it is when they grow in large swathes like this.

I also went on a lovely (albeit cold 🥶) coastal walk this weekend. Lots of interesting flowers starting to appear there. Sea pinks, Alexander’s, bladder campion and flowering creeping willow. A trio of gannets flew over our heads and I saw the first wheatear of the year. That almost made up for the freezing temperatures!

It’s so lovely that you managed to inspire a love for nature in your DS @Thirstquenching. With any luck that will stay with him forever!

A mix of wildlife today, I saw a fox and a buzzard on my early morning walk today as well as hearing a woodpecker.

For the last couple of nights I’ve been hearing a single tawny owl hoot. I don’t think they’re supposed to still be hooting in April and there’s something quite sad about this owl’s calls being left unanswered.

In other news, I’ve been getting some very close up views of a chiffchaff lately as one of them has taken a keen interest in the flowerbed that is right outside of my living room window. There’s an overgrown, messy fuchsia in there, which seems to get a lot of birds excited.

Some lovely walks recently - a coastal one with skylarks singing on the salt marsh, and the local canal had a couple of pairs of ducks with an uncountably large couple of broods of ducklings mixed up between them - a couple of dozen at a guess. I’m afraid I embarrassed DH by squealing ‘Ducklings!!’

An odd one this morning. About two years ago I decided to put a blob of nail varnish on a snail I found in my garden, thinking that I would be able to track its movements.

Of course I didn't see it again until this morning! It still has the nail varnish on it but it's considerably bigger.

Wow @TheLongRider, that’s amazing 😯

I walked to the top of my valley today. It’s beautiful there, lots of little streams, moss covered rocks and old gnarly looking trees. I was a little surprised to see lots of butterflies there, with commas, peacocks and orange tips all out in force.

This might sound like a strange question but hoping someone will understand what I mean. I've been going for alot of walks on the beach and I've seen alot of black and white ducks which make the strangest noise. So here goes my description of it 😆 Its a noise like ooooo ooooo I imagine that they sound like a group of old ladies getting excited about seeing a wee puppy or a child. I know that was a terrible description, but any ideas would still be appreciated

Those sound like Eider ducks to me @Thirstquenching

You can check here: www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/eider/

crazzzycat

Thats exactly what it is!

Good skills @Crazzzycat and now I will always be able to identify eider from @Thirstquenching description.

Has anyone heard a cuckoo yet? My meadow section of the garden is full of cuckoo flower, apparently named that as it flowers at the same time as the cuckoo starts to call.

I’ve not heard any cuckoos yet @blackteaplease. I follow a bit of a geeky bird account on Twitter, which posts weekly summaries of everything that’s been seen on Anglesey, which is not far from where I live. They reported the first cuckoo call on the 13th. So I guess they must have arrived in my local area too, but I’ve not heard one yet.

I went to my local beach yesterday, where I was met by the unmistakable sound of sandwich terns! Not exactly the most soothing sound, but another sign that summer is on its way 🙂

If you're old enough to remember Frankie Howerd...'OoooOOOooer'.

The female eiders are brown, but the males are very handsome with distinctive green and a sort of blush front as well as the black and white. I was amazed when I first saw them just offshore quite near where I live, a couple or dozen maybe in a 'raft'.

I'm hoping I may see some where I am now on holiday -yesterday’s first walk the only sounds were gurgling and lapping water, gentle wind and birdsong, mostly larks and willow warblers. Other birds included wheatears and stonechats, and top spot of the day was a black throated diver.

Today we walked to a beach which for some reason (unlike the others which are mostly black rocks) is made of white ‘coral’ - not true coral but the skeleton of a type of red algae, apparently - plus small multicoloured shells. Perhaps there are some unusual currents caused by the small islands just offshore. From a bit of a tump we could see the far side of one of these and the plump form of some seals - once we had the scope set up (DH has been heroically lugging it and the tripod in his rucksack the last couple of days, plus we have binoculars) we could see some in the water too. I think they were common seals, and were a variety of colours - one almost white, some dappled, and another alone at the end of the island looked almost foxy red in the sunshine.
Then we spotted a seal in the water on the near side of the island and in the same view an otter! We watched for a while, it came out onto a small seeweedy beach for a while before swimming again. There were also shags - posing on the rocks drying their wings, flying in circles, swimming and diving. I saw a biggish fish jump at one point so I guess it was a nice rich feeding area.

Also there was a very busy rock pipit a few feet away from us on the rocks on the beach.