Local Little egrets

Tags

, , ,

With these birds spreading rapidly throughout Britain, it was only a matter of time before Little egrets became frequent visitors, possibly even residents in my local area, especially as there are areas of moorland and wet fields bordered by trees where they should feel at home.

Judging by the number of times I’ve seen them in a couple of the local horse fields, they are also very comfortable there (one bird on 21 December, two on 8 February, and two on Wednesday, 11 March). As you can probably see, the ground has been well churned up by the hooves of the grazing horses. That disturbance, together with the amount of fertiliser the horses deposit, means the soil is probably full of delicious worms and small invertebrates.

On Wednesday, though there was a bitter wind blowing, we finally had bright sunshine between periods of large scudding clouds. It was the one day recently that I’d have been happy not to have had the glare of the sun, which made it difficult to photograph these two very white Little egrets, particularly as they were very close to the path I was on and quite settled, but I still really enjoyed having such close views of them feeding.

Cormorants, young and old

Tags

, , , , , ,

Though a handsome blend of browns, sometimes with a white belly, the juvenile Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) is a bland bird compared to the adult, especially in the breeding season.

The adult shown below is a fine example of how striking these birds look during the breeding season, with their white ‘manes’ and thigh patch. (These two photos are the same bird, viewed from the left and right sides, as the bird held its wings low against its side in the first photo, and I wanted to get a photo showing the thigh patch.)

An interesting fact I didn’t know about the Cormorant but have just read on the RSPB website:

Despite being an agile underwater hunter, its feathers aren’t waterproof. In fact, wet feathers help this species to move quicker when on the prowl, reducing the bird’s buoyancy as it darts through the depths.

And, I guess, that’s why we often see Cormorants standing with their wings open, to dry them once they’ve finished fishing.

Bay bunnies

Tags

, , ,

Given how actively anti-environment the actions of Cardiff Council and its various subsidiaries, like the Harbour Authority, are, I’m amazed these European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) have managed to survive within the official boundary of Cardiff Port. But survive they have.

Maybe their survival is helped by the fact that they are easily seen by the hundreds of people who walk or bike past this area every day; if the rabbits disappeared, people would notice and ask why, how, when, who.

I hope they continue to flaunt their survival, as they currently do, by grazing on the one grassy field in the area and on top of the humps of now-vegetated rubbish material adjacent to the footway and cycle path.

With a background of the dark blue cranes using to move cargo and the tall lights that illuminate the port, the rabbits are an incongruous sight but that just makes me like them all the more.

Beating the gloom

Tags

, , , ,

Today I can finally see the sky again but for the past several days we’ve had nothing but grey foggy damp dismal gloom. I’m generally quite a buoyant person and try always to see the positive in situations but, yesterday, even I was starting to find the constant dreary weather a bit depressing, until I saw this. The big bold golden flowers of Marsh marigold are so beautiful and cheering that a smile instantly formed on my face and my mood improved for the rest of the day, in spite of the gloom.

No booming Bittern but …

Tags

, , ,

A 10 minute walk to my nearest train station; a 15 minute train ride to central Cardiff; an 8 minute walk to the correct bus stop; a 20 minute bus ride; a 10 minute walk to Parc Tredelerch (plus some waiting time in between those various journeys) and all in the hope of hearing a Bittern booming out its love call from the reedbeds. Did it boom? No, it did not. But the sun was shining, I got plenty of exercise walking around and round the various trails in the park, and, a beautiful bonus, I saw my first Comma butterfly for 2026.

And wouldn’t you know it? That darn Bittern boomed again early the following morning. It obviously didn’t like the look of me!

Danish scurvygrass

Tags

, , ,

As you might guess from the name, the leaves of both Common scurvygrass (Cochlearia officinalis) and Danish scurvygrass (C. danica) are high in vitamin C and so were used in the days of sailing ships to combat the danger to seamen of suffering from scurvy due to a lack of citrus fruit in their diets.

As far as I’m aware, I’ve never seen Common scurvygrass, which grows in saltmarshes, on cliffs and in sand dunes, but the Danish variety is locally very common, especially along the edges of our busier roads and motorways, where the salt used to clear the roads of ice and snow during the winter months provides the plants with the salt they would usually enjoy when growing close to the sea.

I found the plants shown here growing along the edge of the footways on either side of the four traffic lanes on the A4232 Cardiff Bay Link Road, on the bridge that carries vehicles across the River Taff where the river flows in to Cardiff Bay. The bridge must be about 7 metres (23 feet) above the water (it has a navigable clearance height of around 5.3 metres [17.4 feet]) so it’s fairly safe to assume the seeds of the Danish scurvygrass arrived on the bridge by being blown along by passing traffic.

It’s also fairly safe to assume that the council doesn’t clean the footways very often as enough soil/mud has accumulated for the scurvygrass (and other plants) to grow in. It’s an attractive little plant, its pretty white flowers and glossy green leaves much more pleasant to look at than the rubbish that also collects along the road and footways.

Four weeks early

Tags

, ,

Last Monday, 2 March, I was delighted but also rather astounded to see my first Speckled wood butterfly for 2026 – astounded because this is four weeks earlier than I saw the first of this species in 2024 and 2025. This is nowhere near a UK record though, as the first sighting I found on iRecord was reported at Old Colwyn, in Denbighshire, on 21 February, and there are two other February records in the system: in Cornwall on 22 February and in north Essex on the 25th. The second of March was obviously a warm day across Britain as mine was one of several sightings recorded from various locations on that day. (Of course, these are only the sightings that have been recorded; other Speckled wood butterflies may have been seen but most people don’t record their sightings.)

Three shieldbug species

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

The number and variety of invertebrates that are now out and about is gradually increasing, though seeing them depends on reasonably warm, sunny days, which are still very much intermittent here in south Wales. When the sun does shine though, shieldbugs can be seen basking on the trees of shrubs and wildflowers, and I’ve now managed to spot these three different species.

Hairy shieldbug (Dolycoris baccarum)

Hawthorn shieldbug (Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale)

And Green shieldbug (sometimes called Common green shieldbug, Palomena prasina). Both of the above are Green shieldbugs but this species changes to a bronze colour before winter hibernation and takes a little time to change back to its usual green hue come the spring.

Toad spawn

Tags

, , , , ,

Last Wednesday, 25 February, I made my first visit to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park in a couple of weeks and, while I was there, I checked out the dipping pond, thinking I might find frogs and/or frog spawn.

Instead, I found toads, tens, maybe hundreds of toads, writhing and slithering, males gripping on to the backs of females in their annual orgy to ensure the survival of their species; females clinging to pieces of vegetation as they exuded from their bodies the long strings of eggs that in 10 to 12 days will produce miniscule tadpoles … unless hungry birds get to them first.

Yet, even if the birds do find themselves a feast, toads produces so many eggs that I’m fairly positive that if I visit this same pond around the same time next year, the toads will be back and doing it all over again.

Hoverflies and bumblebees

Tags

, , , , , , ,

As the day and night temperatures begin to rise and we start to enjoy occasional sunny days, the number of flying insects continues to rise. Spring has only just begun but I’ve already logged two species of bumblebee and three hoverfly species on the wing. They are …

The hoverflies: Eristalis pertinax, Episyrphus balteatus and Meliscaeva auricollis

The bumbles: Buff-tailed bumblebee and Common carder.