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earthstar

~ a celebration of nature

earthstar

Category Archives: nature

Meliscaeva auricollis

14 Tuesday Mar 2023

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British hoverflies, hoverfly, Meliscaeva auricollis

In just a few days we’ve gone from sleet and snow to a high of 11ºc. We humans can easily change our clothes to suit the conditions but the see-sawing temperatures must be creating problems for the insect world.

230313 meliscaeva auricollis (1)

Some, like these Meliscaeva auricollis hoverflies, emerge from their winter hibernation when the temperatures start to rise, then get knocked sideways when the mercury plummets and the snow starts to fall. Hopefully, they’re able to find shelter from the icy blasts so they can re-emerge at a later date.

230313 meliscaeva auricollis (2)

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New year, new lists

02 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Scaup

Yes, I make lists. Each year, a new page in my notebook, new pages in the spreadsheets on my laptop. I only keep two lists, one for the birds I see and one for the butterflies, which, unless I’m very lucky, won’t have any names added for a few months yet. I don’t do this in competition with other listers but rather as a way of comparing one year with another, and also of remembering. Just as photographs trigger memories of places and events, so too do my lists. And then there’s the personal challenge, particularly on the first day of the new year, to see how many bird species I can find on a walk around Cardiff Bay (31 in 2018, a whopping 47 in 2019, 44 in 2020, 40 in 2021, 45 in 2022). And this year’s total? Well, incredibly, yesterday’s 9-mile walk resulted in a total of 50 bird species, which was definitely helped by the lingering presence of Black redstarts, the Whooper swan, and this female Scaup.

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Beautiful butterflies, 2022

28 Wednesday Dec 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterfly

For a variety of reasons, I wasn’t able to venture far from home for my butterfly viewing opportunities this year. As a consequence, the number of species I saw was small, just 30. Of those, 26 species were seen within walking distance of home, which, even after seven and a half years here in Wales, I still find amazing. In my native New Zealand, you would usually only see two species so easily (the introduced White and the self-introduced Monarch), though this does depend, of course, on where you live. The other four species on my list were seen up the valleys, at Aberbargoed, Grayling on the coal spoil tip, and Small heath, Marsh fritillary and Small pearl-bordered fritillary in the Aberbargoed Grasslands National Nature Reserve. Only 29 species are shown in my video, as I didn’t manage to get close enough to the Purple hairstreaks I saw for viable photographs. I am hoping / intending / planning to see more species in 2023, and compiling this video has made me impatient for the return of my beloved, beautiful butterflies.

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Five Redshanks

21 Wednesday Dec 2022

Posted by sconzani in nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Redshank

In previous years, the Redshanks have returned to the Ely embankment, where the River Ely runs in to Cardiff Bay, as early as mid October. This year, for some unknown reason, they’re late. I started seeing them on the mud outside the Barrage a couple of weeks ago but these five are the first I’ve seen grazing along the shoreline of the embankment, where they catch tiny molluscs and crustaceans. It’s wonderful to have these handsome birds back on the patch again.

221221 redshanks

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Iced Heron

15 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by sconzani in nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Grey heron, iced-over pond, icy water

Just watching this Grey heron standing in the partially iced-over lake made me feel cold this morning, and I was bundled up in several layers of clothing, woolly hat and scarf and 2 pairs of gloves.

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Winding down with waders, 1

10 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by sconzani in nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, British waders, coastal birding, Newton Point birding, watching waders

My Saturday was wonderful, a day’s birding along the Vale of Glamorgan coastline with my friend Della, checking clifftops for Choughs (unsuccessfully), stumbling over Stonechats along shorelines, scanning blue skies for Kestrels and Fulmar (the latter also unsuccessfully), hoping for (but not finding) the gold nuggets of Yellowhammers in hedgerows, nabbing a snippet of a Little owl in a crumbing barn roof.

221010 newton point birding

We wound down by watching waders settling in for the night at Newton Point. Arriving about two hours before high tide, we were able to find a couple of spots amongst the rocks where we could sit quietly, almost obscured from the birds, and watch their antics, listen to their chatter as the encroaching tide pushed the birds closer to us. It was the perfect end to a magical day (and I’ll share more about the birds tomorrow and Wednesday).

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Taking time to stand and stare

27 Saturday Aug 2022

Posted by sconzani in nature

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British wildflowers, plant seeds, seedhead, wildflower seedhead

220827 seedhead

‘What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?’
From the poem ‘Leisure’ by Welsh poet W. H. Davies, Songs of Joy and Others, A. C. Fifield, 1911.

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Second lucky day

12 Friday Aug 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterfly, Silver-washed fritillary

My first lucky day happened when I took the new camera for its first outing, and not only produced the Robin photo I posted yesterday but also the Brown argus I blogged about on Wednesday. The very next day I was, if anything, even more lucky, as I found this superb, if rather faded Silver-washed fritillary in a local woodland. Long time followers might remember I found a male Silver-washed frit (A golden surprise) last July, which was in the same woodland. This latest butterfly was quite a distance from last year’s find spot but that may just be because the scarcity of food sources had forced it to fly a little further than usual. This year’s butterfly is a female so I’m hoping she had found/can find a male and laid/will lay some eggs.

220812 silver-washed fritillary

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Twinkle toes

02 Tuesday Aug 2022

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Moorhen, Moorhen chick, Moorhen chick's toes, Moorhen feet, Moorhen toes

Can you even begin to imagine what it would be like to have toes as long as this Moorhen chick? It would be like having toes as long as our bodies. We’d be falling over ourselves trying to move about. But not the Moorhen. Although this little one was still young enough not to have full control over its lengthy extremities, one of its parents put on a display that showed exactly what they’re good for, spreading its weight as it sprinted across the leaves of water lilies, almost as if it was walking on water.

220802 moorhen chick

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Fledged

19 Tuesday Jul 2022

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Lesser black-backed gull, Lesser black-backed gull chicks, urban gull chicks, urban gull nest

Last Saturday afternoon, with much screeching and peeping, this year’s Lesser black-backed gull chick fledged from its home amongst a neighbour’s chimney pots – the same location and, presumably, the same pair of gulls as I’ve posted about here before (in The eggs have hatched!, June 2019 and Fledging, July 2020). I’m never sure whether the chicks’ departures from these rooftop nests are deliberate or accidental – some over-jealous wing-flapping, perhaps? But this year it was certainly well timed to miss the scorching heatwave – I can’t begin to imagine what the temperature would be on the rooftops in full sun.

I’m pleased to report the fledgling has made it through its first couple of nights and days. When I headed out early Sunday morning for a walk, it was sitting across the road in the local church grounds, an adult on the roof top keeping an eye on it, and that’s where it seems to have remained, a relatively safe and sheltered spot next to a very busy road. Fingers crossed for its continued survival!

220719 LBB fledgling

p.s. The top two images were taken when it was still in the ‘nest’; the photos are dated 11 and 12 July respectively.

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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