AMAZING sunshine today and a walk through a local limestone valley was a Spring treat.
The small flock of redwings flew off in fright from the trees towering over the muddy footpath, but the chiff-chaff sang heartily from a willow branch. A brimstone butterfly shot by. The field edges were be-speckled with primrose flowers, scattered liberally like jewels in the grass.
One special treat was a single clump of false-oxlips - there were no cowslips flowering within sight and this bunch were quite a way from the the primroses, standing out proud over the close cropped grass - wonderful!
WE set out on Sunday to get some muddy exercise and visit a small colony of wild, native daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) in the wonderful GWT Lower Woods, Gloucs. Amidst the tangle of hazel wands and bramble stems the delicate yellow trumpets were still damp from the night's shower. This is not a vast swath like in more northerly sites but were still wonderful to see.
IT'S been a while since I blogged, but this winter has provided some wonderful wildlife experiences: its hard to beat the starling murmurations and the great flocks of sky-wielding ducks on the Somerset Levels. However, now that spring is here I can turn my attention to a wider variety of subjects.
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| Glastonbury Tor |
The herons in the heronry are busy with their little egret neighbours nesting in the tree tops, many resident birds are singing and the wintering flocks are breaking up. Pairing and carving out territories is certainly on the cards for many.
There's not much greenery yet outside of the garden, but the pussy willow is just starting to break buds with soft downy catkins, and the hazel pollen has already floated off.
On the journey to the core of the Levels in a muddy farm field a small flock (9) of expectant probing little egrets pursued the uninterested cattle picking off worms and insects in their wake.
I decided to visit Canada Farm Lake, not having been there for months - I'd
faffed extensively and so took ages to walk from the car to the hide, but this meant
that I was in the right place to see a crane flying overhead - I heard
it trumpeting first (not sure to whom) - then it glided past:
The track to the hide yielding a huge flock of small, twittering birds, including gold finches and siskins. From the hide I watched a pair of kingfishers going back and forth and a GC grebe catching and taking on a sizable fish. A peregrine and marsh harrier both scooted over the reeds to the far right.
Grebe: 1 - fish: 0
On Ham Wall RSPB Reserve the gusting wind dropped the temperature, but the bittern still showed nicely and the ground nesting herons were in full nest building mode.
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| Little Grebe |
Spring really is upon us.
