Category Archives: nature

67/366 Wild word : dioecious

07 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by in flowers, nature, spring, trees

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Dioecious: adjective; (of a plant or invertebrate animal) having the male and female reproductive organs in separate individuals (Oxford Dictionary).

200307 Yew male flowers (1)

My example today is the Yew tree (Taxus baccata), which has male and female flowers on separate trees. The male flowers are out now on a couple of trees in my local park – the female flowers may also be out but I didn’t look for them. The males are rather more showy and obvious, especially when they’re not soaking wet and their yellow pollen is blowing in the wind.

200307 Yew male flowers (2)

66/366 Three Brown rats

06 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by in animals, mammal, nature

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I found some kind soul had left a scattering of bird seed and peanuts, still in their shells, on the dirt by the side of the east lake at Cosmeston, when I walked there this afternoon. A Mute swan, a couple of Mallards and a few Tufted ducks were milling around at the water’s edge, presumably having just been fed, but they couldn’t reach these extra seeds. The food didn’t go to waste though. As I watched, first a set of twitching whiskers and then a pair of dark bulging eyes appeared over the edge of the bank … a Brown rat!

200306 Brown rat (1)

And then another …

200306 Brown rat (2)

And another … three Brown rats! One at a time, they ran out, grabbed a peanut shell, and scurried away to stash their finds somewhere safe. And on they went until all the peanuts had disappeared. They were so cute to watch.

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65/366 The oldest plants

05 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in nature, plants, spring

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‘The oldest surviving family of plants on Earth is the Equisetum – the horsetail. The fifteen or so species that persist today have known 395 million years of Earth’s history.’  ~  Hope Jahren, Lab Girl: A story of trees, science and love, Fleet, London, 2016.

To my eye, Equisetum has an ancient look to it. The plant was on this planet long before humans and I’m sure it will be around long after humans have passed. Its spears are pushing up everywhere now, a literal sign that Spring has sprung.

64/366 ‘A wonderful bird’

04 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by in birds, nature

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A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.
~  The Pelican, Dixon Lanier Merritt, American poet

I met the stunning Great white pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) above at the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park in Malaysia in May 2013. The great thing about the bird park was its huge aviaries, where the birds had plenty of space and a relatively natural environment to roam in. The American white pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), below, were gathering to roost on the Fox River, in De Pere, in the US state of Wisconsin in July 2015.

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I can’t help but wonder what the pelican with its beak open is doing – scratching an itch?

63/366 Small and white

03 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by in flowers, nature

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Roses are red, violets are white
If you’re confused, that’s alright.

200303 white sweet violets (1)

Though most violets are usually, well, violet coloured, some can be much lighter shades of lilac and Sweet violets (Viola odorata) also have a white variety. I was surprised and delighted to find good numbers of these gorgeous white beauties growing alongside a local pathway yesterday. In fact, as it’s a route I walk often, I was particularly surprised that I haven’t noticed their presence in previous years.

200303 white sweet violets (2)

62/366 A flying start

02 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by in insects, nature, spring, wildflowers

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A little bit of sunshine and a sheltered spot, plus a few blooming wildflowers – in this case, dandelions and Alexanders, alongside a south Wales coastal road – and out came the flying critters: solitary bees a’buzzing, various species of flies a’flying and hoverflies a’hovering. Spring is off to a flying start!

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61/366 Lilac and yellow

01 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in flowers, nature, wildflowers

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Rather than a full list of wildflower sightings this week, I’m focusing on just three, this week’s new (to me) blooms. And, in fact, this first wildflower, Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), was a first-ever sighting for me. Originally from southern Europe, this plant is a member of the buttercup family, and, if the database records of this beautiful flower are any indication, it’s a plant that is quite rare in the wild in Wales.

200301 winter aconite

This is a dog-violet, possibly Early dog-violet, though I didn’t take good enough photos of the particular features needed to differentiate the Early (Viola reichenbachiana) from the Common (Viola riviniana).

200301 early dog-violet

And, finally, this delightful combination of the two colours of the above blooms, lilac and yellow, a Primrose. Though not the usual cream-coloured flower we most commonly see, this is, I believe, a natural colour variation of the native Primrose, rather than something humans have bred.

200301 primrose pink variety

60/366 Barefaced crow

29 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in birds, nature

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Barefaced crow is one of the common names for the Rook (Corvus frugilegus), and it’s easy to see how it came about, though it’s not so much that its face is bare but rather the top of its large, pale beak (compare the Crow on the left, the Rook on the right).

Though there’s a rookery in a nearby town, and used to be one in the woods at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, I haven’t seen a lot of Rooks in my local area … until this winter. Now, I see them quite often, in the farm fields north of the park itself, usually in the company of Jackdaws and Carrion crows.

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I was fascinated to read in my Fauna Britannica, that ‘If a death (especially of the head of the household) occurred in a family owning the land that supported a rookery, there has been a widespread tradition that the Rooks must be told.’ Let’s hope that doesn’t prove necessary!

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59/366 Good weather for frogs?

28 Friday Feb 2020

Posted by in amphibian, nature

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Do frogs like the rain? As they’re amphibians, I’m assuming they do but I’m sure even they experience difficulties when there’s too much water around, and maybe it’s just their tadpoles that, of necessity, like water.

200228 frog spawn (1)

Our miserable weather continued today, with heavy rain from dawn to dusk, so these photos are from a couple of days ago when I enjoyed a meander around Forest Farm Nature Reserve in the all-too-brief sunshine. I found this frog spawn, the eggs of the Common frog (Rana temporaria), in the dragonfly pond at the reserve.

200228 frog spawn (3)

I initially thought it was a little early but it turns out I blogged about finding frog spawn at Lavernock Nature Reserve on the exact same date last year. I missed the tadpoles in 2019 so must remember to check for them in a week or so.

200228 frog spawn (2)

58/366 A weather warning from the Wren

27 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by in birds, nature

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200227 wren (2)

In its section about the Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) my Fauna Britannica has this disturbing sentence: ‘In some areas, the sight of Wrens congregating presaged bad weather.’ I’d better not tell you how many Wrens I saw together yesterday because I’m sure that, like me, you really don’t want any more bad weather!

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