12 Saturday Oct 2024
The RSPB website‘s description of the Shoveler (Anas clypeata) pretty much nails it: ‘surface feeding ducks with huge spatula-shaped bills’. All the better to shovel as much food as possible from the water to your stomach as efficiently as possible, I reckon.
Shovelers are winter visitors to south Wales, and, although one or two pop in to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, most of these handsome ducks I see locally are at Roath Park Lake, which is where these photos were taken on two recent visits.
06 Sunday Oct 2024
Tags
autumn colour, cyclamen, flowers at the cemetery, mass flowering of cyclamen, naturalised plants
These are probably not wildflowers in the strict sense of the word, but more likely the offspring of a single plant that was placed on a grave in memory of a lost loved one. Yet, over the years, these cyclamen have escaped the confines of the concrete edging around the grave, to spread and naturalise in the surrounding grass and across neighbouring graves, providing this glorious display of autumn colour. What better way to celebrate the life of those we lose than with flowering plants as beautiful as these!
04 Friday Oct 2024
These Scarlet waxcaps (Hygrocybe coccinea) are the little gems I was hoping to find during my last visit to Cardiff’s Cathays Cemetery a couple of weeks ago but they hadn’t yet popped their little gorgeous heads up through the mossy grass.
This week some had, though many more were still just tiny scarlet bumps about to burst through.
Sadly, Cardiff Council workers were in the middle of cutting the grass at the cemetery so the chances of these, and any other waxcaps I didn’t manage to spot, surviving are about zero.
The cemetery is a SSSI precisely because of its rare waxcaps, and I know from speaking to a local ecologist that the Council has been given information on how they should be managing the cemetery to conserve and enhance the waxcap population. Sadly, like so many councils in the UK, they choose to destroy the environment rather than protect it.
25 Wednesday Sep 2024
Tags
autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Phoenicurus phoenicurus, Redstart
Several Redstarts (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) have passed through my local area during this autumn’s migration, not all seen by me, and there may be more still to come. I may yet get a closer sharper image of one but, judging by experience in past years, the chances are not great. For some reason, these birds can be quite elusive and skittish. So, here are the few that I have managed to get more than a fleeting glimpse and photograph of …
28 August; all three of these birds were at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park
30 August
9 September
22 Sunday Sep 2024
Tags
autumn berries, autumn colour, Common dogwood, Cornus sanguinea, Cornus sericea, Dogwood, Red-osier dogwood
To celebrate the Autumn equinox I thought I’d share some berries, and for this post I’ve confined my enthusiasm for all berries to a shrub that really comes in to its own at this time of year, Dogwood. The species I see most often is Common dogwood (Cornus sanguinea), which grows in hedgerows and along woodland edges, the twigs of which have previously had an interesting use, according to the Woodland Trust website:
The origin of the name comes from the smooth, straight twigs which were used to make butchers’ skewers. Skewers used to be called ‘dags’ or ‘dogs’, so the name means ‘skewer wood’.
I only noticed this second species of Dogwood quite recently, and then only because of its stunning berries that start out as tiny globes of purple before turning a bright snowy white. This is Red-osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea), which is usually a cultivated species grown in parks and gardens but which escapes that controlled setting to become naturalised in wilder places.
21 Saturday Sep 2024
With its all-star lineup of migrating birds – three Stonechats and two Whinchats, this simply has to be my favourite kind of fence!
20 Friday Sep 2024
With the recent launch of its campaign #WaxcapWatch, the environment organisation Plantlife is asking for the public’s help to record waxcap fungi this autumn. As they state on their website:
Britain is home to some of the most important waxcap grasslands in the world. However many species are becoming rare and declining; they need identifying and protecting.
You don’t need to be a fungi expert to help out. The webpage provides all the instructions you need, including a link to an app you can use to record your finds, and a handy video on how to use the app. So, no excuses! Waxcaps are some of our most beautiful fungi and seeing these little gems growing in a field is a truly wonderful experience.
The waxcaps shown here are all Parrot waxcaps (Gliophorus psittacinus), and were found during a wander around one of Cardiff’s old cemeteries last week.
15 Sunday Sep 2024
Posted in autumn, flowers, wildflowers
Meadow saffron (Colchicum autumnale), also known as Autumn crocus even though it’s not actually a crocus, is currently providing visitors to Roath Park Lake with a magnificent display of colour.
As well as the grassy area near Roath Lake, these gorgeous plants bloom annually in Cardiff’s Bute Park. I’ve blogged about them before, and provided more information, back in 2016 (The Naked Ladies of Roath and Bute, 9 September).
03 Tuesday Sep 2024
Tags
Anas querquedula, autumn migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, British ducks, ducks, Garganey, migrating birds, Roath Park Lake
Back in September 2017, I wrote a blog about the experience of seeing a female Garganey on Roath Park Lake (Autumn migration: Garganey).
Roll forward seven years to last Tuesday, 27 August, and my trip to north Cardiff was almost an exact repeat of that day in 2017: searching but not initially finding the bird; going for a walk and trying again (though this time I had some help from a local birder who’d seen the Garganey earlier that morning); noting how she was feeding so frequently amongst the lake weed that most of my photos were of a headless duck.
As with so many duck species, the female Garganey (Anas querquedula) does not have the showy plumage of the male of the species but this was a gorgeous, very dainty little duck. And, once I did eventually find her, she was a joy to watch.
01 Sunday Sep 2024
Tags
autumn berries, autumn colours, autumn fruit, rose hips, Sloes, Spindle fruits, whitebeam berries
Though today was actually quite warm and humid, there’s no denying that autumnal feel in the air. The evenings are getting dark earlier; there’s an occasional hint of a heavy dew, if not quite a frost; the birds have already begun their migration south for the winter; and, on the trees and shrubs, the fruits are bright and bursting, the leaves beginning to turn. Happy Autumn to all in the northern hemisphere (and happy Spring to those down under)!
