Thrift

29 Sunday Mar 2026

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Though Richard Mabey writes in Flora Britannica that Thrift, which may have acquired its common name ‘from its tight and economic tufts’, is found in ‘almost every kind of seashore location’, I don’t see it in my area of south Wales so it was lovely to see this beautiful plant just coming in to bloom on Portland.

Though Thrift’s scientific name Armeria maritima rolls nicely off the tongue, I much prefer the vernacular names listed and explained by Mabey: Sea-pink (a lovely name and easily understandable from this plant’s lovely blooms, which vary from dark pink through to white), Cliff clover (cliff I get, but this is nothing like a clover in appearance), Ladies’ cushions (from their padded cushion-like form); and Heugh daisy (a name used only in specific locations in Scotland and northern England, where heugh means cliff or ravine).

The day of the Wheatears

28 Saturday Mar 2026

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I spotted my first Wheatear of the year last Tuesday, 17 March, sitting at a distance on the edge of the rocky slope of Chesil Beach at Ferrybridge but it was Friday, the 20th, that turned out to be ‘the day of the Wheatears’!

My long day of wandering around parts of the Isle of Portland began in that same location at Ferrybridge, where I found three stunning male Wheatears dotting about, feeding up on tiny insects after their long migration flight.

From there I walked along the coast path to Portland Castle, where there were three more Wheatears. These birds had been scared off the beach rocks by passing pedestrians and cyclists, and were moving around the grassy areas at the heliport opposite the beach.

Next, I caught the bus to Reap Lane, for a wander along Portland’s west cliffs coast path, around the adjacent horse fields and the Bill area surrounding the iconic lighthouse. Just one of those horse fields held five more Wheatears, males and the first female I’d seen.

And, a little later, as I sat on a rock at the Bill, eating my flapjack and apple, I was wonderfully entertained by another Wheatear hopping about the area right in front of me.

What a superb day it was! I thought my 12 Wheatear sightings were impressive – and that was my highest ever daily total but the daily blog for 20 March by Martin Cade at Portland Bird Observatory reported:

There was lots of enjoyment to be had from today’s migration happenings, with the continuing settled weather seeing plenty of birds arriving on all fronts across the island. On the ground, Wheatears were conspicuously abundant, with a likely very conservative minimum of 100 recorded around the Bill where multiple waves of birds raced through throughout the morning.

Cetti’s warblers

27 Friday Mar 2026

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To label this bird a warbler is something of a misnomer, I think, as, really, they shout, loudly and raucously at this time of year, ‘Hey, girl! Look at me, look at me, look at me!’.

Meet the Cetti’s warbler (pronounced ‘chetty’ ) (Cettia cetti), named after the 18th-century Italian ornithologist Francesco Cetti, who first described it. It’s a bird that can usually be found near water, in the shrubs and reed beds that surround swamps and lakes or line the edges of rivers and streams.

Most of the year, the Cetti’s warbler is more of a skulker, producing its call from within dense vegetation, but, in the springtime, motivated by the need to find a mate, the males are much more visible.

They usually hold a small territory and, within that area, have favourite singing podiums/perches where they sit and call. And I find they follow the same route as they move around their patch so, if you spend a little time watching and listening, you can often catch them at one of their perches, as I managed to do with these two at RSPB Lodmoor last week.

Goose barnacles

26 Thursday Mar 2026

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I didn’t spend a lot of time beach fossicking during last week’s visit to Weymouth but, when I was walking along the front towards Lodmoor one morning, I noticed a man kicking at something on the sand. My curiosity got the better of me so, when the man had walked on, I went down for a look. This is what I saw.

It looked like a very strange snake but was, in fact, a piece of thick rope covered in possibly hundreds of Goose barnacles (Lepas anatifera), something I’d never seen before in person but had seen in photos on social media. The Wildlife Trusts website provided the following information:

Barnacles are a type of crustacean, related to crabs and lobsters. Goose barnacles filter feed on plankton and detritus, capturing it from the water with their specially adapted legs. In many places in the world they are a delicacy – in fact, in days gone by, any ships arriving in Cornwall with goose barnacles on the hull were a real moneyspinner. The goose barnacles would be scraped from the hull and sold for food.

These Goose barnacles didn’t look the least bit appetising to me. There was no way to know how long they had been lying on the beach and I wasn’t even sure if they were alive or dead, but it was certainly interesting to finally see these creatures.

Black-tailed godwits fighting

25 Wednesday Mar 2026

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The vibrant russet-coloured summer plumage of the Black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa) is simply stunning, so it was a real treat to see several of these handsome birds in their breeding regalia on three separate days last week at RSPB Lodmoor. The first time I spotted them, they were quite distant but, on the second occasion, last Thursday 19 March, the godwits were feeding much closer to the path, and I managed to get some reasonable photos.

You’ll notice that not all the birds have moulted in to summer plumage; those that haven’t may be juvenile birds or perhaps non-breeding adults. During my visit to Lodmoor last Saturday, the 21st, I was enjoying watching one of those birds busily probing for food very near me when another Black-tailed godwit flew in.

Immediately, the peace was shattered. For some unknown reason, this interloper was spoiling for a fight, and it attacked the other bird. The situation turned dramatic very quickly. Beaks and claws were used as weapons, wings flapped violently; they really looked like they might hurt each other.

Though it seemed much longer, after no more than a minute had passed, the interloper flew off and the first bird started feeding again. But then, back came the second bird, clearly in the mood for a scrap. I should’ve switched to video but was so caught up in watching them that I didn’t think to do that, so I’ve made a short slideshow of the photos I took that weren’t a complete blur. You’ll be pleased to know that the interloper once again flew off after just a minute or two, and neither bird appeared to be hurt.

Singing from every tree top

24 Tuesday Mar 2026

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The first thing I noticed, the first birds I heard as I approached RSPB Lodmoor on the first visit (last Monday afternoon, 16 March) of my most recent visit to Weymouth was the male Greenfinches that seemed to be singing from every tree top and tall shrub.

Singing Greenfinches may not sound too exciting to many of you but these birds were in serious trouble until very recently, and they are still red-listed in the UK, their population numbers plummeting due to the disease trichomonosis, which causes lesions in a bird’s throat and gullet, eventually leading to the bird not being able to feed and ultimately to its death. The disease is often more prevalent in garden birds because many people who feed their local birds don’t wash the feeders often enough, leading to the disease being passed on through contact with contaminated surfaces.

Fortunately, the Lodmoor Greenfinches have no need to visit the gardens of the houses that line one side of the reserve as they seem able to source enough food from the local vegetation; I spotted them picking out any remaining Hawthorn berries for the seeds within, and also picking at Blackthorn blossom, presumably for the newly forming fruit within.

I often find Greenfinches to be flighty birds but these males were so busy singing for mates and feeding up that I was able to get what are probably my best photos of them, and you can easily see why they are called Greenfinches.

Turtle bug

23 Monday Mar 2026

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I found this little bug dead when I was picking up small rotting logs to see what might be lurking beneath, in a meander around Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park three weeks ago. I thought it was a Tortoise bug (Eurygaster testudinaria) and recorded it as such but my identification has since been corrected.

Turns out I had confused Turtle with Tortoise! This is, in fact, a species of shieldbug, a Turtle bug (Podops inuncta). Though I don’t think it’s clear in my photos, this species has ‘two small projections on the pronotum at each side of the head’ (thank you, Nature Spot).

The habitat in which I found it also fits with what the Nature Spot website says: ‘it is strongly ground-dwelling and rarely found unless searched for’; that explains why I’ve never seen one before, and encourages me to keep lifting up those small rotting logs.

Springtime invasives

22 Sunday Mar 2026

Posted by in flowers, spring

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Yes, the sight of a large field of flowering bluebells is the epitome of springtime but not when they are Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica), which are highly invasive non-native plants, and I do wish people in their home gardens and local authorities in public parks would stop their mass plantings of this species, especially if the area is near a woodland. As well as being invasive and out-competing native British bluebells, Spanish bluebells will also hybridise with them thus threatening the genetic integrity of the native species.

And the same goes for Three-cornered leeks (Allium triquetrum). They do look attractive, and many people who don’t know their plants well get one whiff of these plants and think they are Wild garlic (Allium ursinum), but Three-cornered leeks are another highly invasive non-native plant that will spread like wildfire if left unchecked. In fact, they are now such a problem that they are listed in Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, making it an offence to plant or cause them to grow in the wild.

Singing Dunnocks

21 Saturday Mar 2026

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If you live in the UK, you may not necessarily have realised it but I’m sure most of you will have heard at least one singing Dunnock already this year; they’ve been singing here in south Wales for at least a month, and, in fact, the epithet modularis in their scientific name (Prunella modularis) is Latin for ‘modulating’, i.e. varying the strength, tone, or pitch of your voice, something the Dunnock is very good at.

Today’s ‘did you know?’ information comes from the Woodland Trust website:

Dunnocks can raise several broods of chicks per year. This means the population can be maintained despite some nests being taken over by cuckoos.

As I’m sure most of you are aware, the Cuckoo practises brood parasitism, laying its eggs in the nests of certain other bird species, and then taking no part in the rearing of its offspring.

New cat: Large yellow underwing

20 Friday Mar 2026

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When the days are wet and/or gloomy, insects hiding deep in the vegetation and birds difficult to see and/or photograph, I often resort to getting my hands dirty, turning over small boulders and/or picking up small logs and fallen branches to see what lies beneath. This is a recent, rather unexpected find from one of those days, the larva of a Large yellow underwing moth (Noctua pronuba), which, apparently feeds at night and hides underground – or, in this case, under log, in the daytime. You can see images of other larvae and the adult moth on the UK Moths website but I’ve also posted images here, in my blog Moths Matter, August 2023.