21 Tuesday Jan 2025
Posted in birds
I’ve been trying to get photos of those gorgeous little fluff bundles, the Long-tailed tits. Typically, given how speedily they flit through the branches, of the 50 odd photos I took yesterday, this is the only sharp one. But, as my title declares, ‘Oh, what a lovely bottom!’.
20 Monday Jan 2025
Though Cosmeston Lakes, my local country park, is visited by a wide variety of passing avian rarities, arguably its least common resident bird is the Marsh tit, which makes its home from around October to March within the boundaries of Cogan Wood.
The current population seems to be three, though that’s just an educated guess. When walking through the wood recently, two Marsh tits were coming to food at one well known feeding location, and one bird appeared at a second location at the other end of the woods.
No one knows where the birds go during the breeding season though, as they are small, they’re unlikely to venture far afield. Indeed, it may be that they simply move to some of the outlying areas of the park that are, fortunately, inaccessible to humans so they can breed in peace.
Whatever the reality may be, I’m just glad they are able to sustain their tiny population so that folks like me, who truly appreciate how precious they are, can continue to enjoy watching them.
19 Sunday Jan 2025
Tags
British fungi, Elfcups, Sarcoscypha coccinea, Scarlet elfcups, winter colour, winter fungi, woodland fungi
I have no wildflowers for you this Sunday – there are still flowers to be found but I’ve found nothing new or particularly interesting, so today’s colour comes in the form of fungi instead.
I’ve been searching for elfcups since early December, the time of year I’ve begun to see them in the past. I used to see them in abundance at Cwm George in Dinas Powys but I suspect it’s been too wet for them there this winter, with the little stream having flooded the area where the fungi grow.
I had also looked for them in Cardiff’s Bute Park in December but seen no sign. So, I was exceedingly happy, when I visited there last week, to find good numbers had popped up on mossy logs throughout the little area of woodland.
I know from having checked samples under a microscope several years ago that these are Scarlet rather than Ruby elfcups (Sarcoscypha coccinea), and they are gorgeous.
18 Saturday Jan 2025
I might have dipped on seeing the Firecrests that have been residing in Cardiff’s Bute Park this winter and have frequently been seen in these Rhododendron bushes, but there can be no better consolation than seeing my first butterfly of 2025, this Red admiral, even if it was at some distance. Spring is coming!
17 Friday Jan 2025
Posted in weather
Tags
beads of water on plants, fog droplets, ivy berries dripping water, water droplets, water on cobwebs
Our weather is currently see-sawing between days of bright blue skies and days of heavy grey gloom. Today, we have the former and it’s a delight to be out, soak up the vitamin D, and feel the warmth of the winter sun but, yesterday, the fog was so thick all day that the fog horn was blaring in the Bristol Channel and you could barely see more than 20 feet in front of you. Still, even fog brings with it small scenes of exquisite beauty …
The structures of cobwebs were highlighted by their covering of water droplets.
This was purely accidental: I love how the large water droplet in the centre is reflecting an Ivy leaf.
Ivy berries dripped with beads of water
Mosses growing in a gap in a wall looked like miniature sculptures with the sparkling coatings of water
16 Thursday Jan 2025
First, there were two Goldeneyes in Cardiff Bay, probably females (though juvenile birds also resemble females, and I’m not sure when they get their adult plumage).
Then, a male turned up.
And they all fairly quickly found each other and mostly hung out together.
Then, in the blink of an eye, another one appeared, and so there were four little Goldeneyes cruising around Cardiff Bay.
They are very entertaining birds to watch, very active, so let’s hope they remain for a while yet (though, sadly, there is a great deal of human disturbance in the Bay, with power boats, kayakers and paddle-boarders all disturbing the local water birds).
15 Wednesday Jan 2025
Yesterday I spotted my first moth of the year, perched on my favourite park railings, this lovely Angle shades.
If you’ve been following along here for a while, you might remember the saga of Colin, the Angle shades moth I reared from a caterpillar. If you’re new and interested – it’s a lovely little series – these are the posts: Colin the caterpillar, 2 February 2022, followed the next day by Colin’s story; then, on 21 February, Colin the chrysalis; and, an update on his progress, Colin’s coloured up, on 23 February. Then, the final instalment, the joyful announcement, on 26 March 2022, He’s arrived!.
15 Wednesday Jan 2025
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
I was struggling to find a subject for today’s blog until I went out for my daily walk and found three plants in bloom that I hadn’t expected to see, especially after our recent very cold weather.
Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) thrives in my coastal location and, though it does die back in the colder weather, it comes away again very quickly. Still, I hadn’t expected to find flowers quite as early as January.
The same is true of Three-cornered leek (Allium triquetrum). The leaves begin growing in early winter but flowers don’t normally appear until spring, in early April.
And this third plant is Hazel. The male catkins often open early, sometimes as early as December, but, in my experience, the female flowers don’t poke their vibrant pink ‘feelers’ until a bit later … yet here they are, in mid January.
14 Tuesday Jan 2025
Posted in winter
Here in coastal south Wales, our winter weather is rarely as dramatically cold as locations further north: in my almost ten years of living here, we’ve had just one big dump of snow (the ‘Beast from the East’ in 2018) and, even during the recent cold snap, we only had the occasional sleet shower, where the sleet melted as soon as it hit the ground.
We do, however, get hard frosts and thick ice, making the pavements treacherous but the countryside beautiful. My photograph above really doesn’t do justice to how lovely the lake looked this particular morning, with the waterfowl gliding through the rising mist.
Here, my eye was drawn to the way the hoar frost followed the curves of the rings on the top of this wooden fence post. I’m not sure why that is, so, if you know, please do enlighten me in the comments below.
This ice was also eye-catching. The water below had drained away, leaving the layer of ice suspended in thin air. Again I’m not sure what caused the patterns but there did seem to be a rainbow-coloured oily sheen within the ice so perhaps that was the cause.
13 Monday Jan 2025
Posted in birds
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, British gulls, Larus melanocephalus, Med gull, Mediterranean gull
This is another of my sightings from December, certainly the best view I had all year of a Mediterranean gull (Larus melanocephalus).
As is usually the case, it was with a large flock of Black-headed gulls, searching the grassy playing fields of a Cardiff park for worms and other invertebrates. These gull flocks can be quite skittish but, as there were no dogs being walked off lead on my side of the park, this lot were content to continue their search while I sat on a park bench watching and taking lots of photographs.
earthstar 
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