10 Friday Apr 2026
Slowly, slowly, as the number of mild sunny spring days increases more and more butterflies are beginning to emerge. This beauty is a Holly blue (Celastrina argiolus), the first of our blue British butterflies to appear each year.
04 Saturday Apr 2026
Here’s another bird that seems to be singing its onomatopoeic song from every tree at the moment – there’s even one flexing its vocal muscles in the garden as I write this.
With numbers of over-wintering Chiffchaffs increasing, it’s not always easy to tell which birds are new arrivals, though, from social media and the blogs of places like Portland Bird Observatory, I think a lot of the birds now singing have recently completed their inward migration journeys.
The bird above was one of several confiding birds at RSPB Lodmoor, while the fluffed-up bird below was an obliging local.
29 Sunday Mar 2026
Posted in seaside, spring, wildflowers
Tags
Armeria maritima, British wildflowers, Heugh daisy, Ladies' cushions, Sea-pink, seaside wildflowers, Thrift
Though Richard Mabey writes in Flora Britannica that Thrift, which may have acquired its common name ‘from its tight and economic tufts’, is found in ‘almost every kind of seashore location’, I don’t see it in my area of south Wales so it was lovely to see this beautiful plant just coming in to bloom on Portland.
Though Thrift’s scientific name Armeria maritima rolls nicely off the tongue, I much prefer the vernacular names listed and explained by Mabey: Sea-pink (a lovely name and easily understandable from this plant’s lovely blooms, which vary from dark pink through to white), Cliff clover (cliff I get, but this is nothing like a clover in appearance), Ladies’ cushions (from their padded cushion-like form); and Heugh daisy (a name used only in specific locations in Scotland and northern England, where heugh means cliff or ravine).
28 Saturday Mar 2026
Tags
birding, birding on the Isle of Portland, birdwatching, British birds, Portland birding, spring migration, Wheatear, Wheatear migration
I spotted my first Wheatear of the year last Tuesday, 17 March, sitting at a distance on the edge of the rocky slope of Chesil Beach at Ferrybridge but it was Friday, the 20th, that turned out to be ‘the day of the Wheatears’!
My long day of wandering around parts of the Isle of Portland began in that same location at Ferrybridge, where I found three stunning male Wheatears dotting about, feeding up on tiny insects after their long migration flight.
From there I walked along the coast path to Portland Castle, where there were three more Wheatears. These birds had been scared off the beach rocks by passing pedestrians and cyclists, and were moving around the grassy areas at the heliport opposite the beach.
Next, I caught the bus to Reap Lane, for a wander along Portland’s west cliffs coast path, around the adjacent horse fields and the Bill area surrounding the iconic lighthouse. Just one of those horse fields held five more Wheatears, males and the first female I’d seen.
And, a little later, as I sat on a rock at the Bill, eating my flapjack and apple, I was wonderfully entertained by another Wheatear hopping about the area right in front of me.
What a superb day it was! I thought my 12 Wheatear sightings were impressive – and that was my highest ever daily total but the daily blog for 20 March by Martin Cade at Portland Bird Observatory reported:
There was lots of enjoyment to be had from today’s migration happenings, with the continuing settled weather seeing plenty of birds arriving on all fronts across the island. On the ground, Wheatears were conspicuously abundant, with a likely very conservative minimum of 100 recorded around the Bill where multiple waves of birds raced through throughout the morning.
27 Friday Mar 2026
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cetti's warbler, Cettia cetti, Lodmoor Nature Reserve, RSPB Lodmoor
To label this bird a warbler is something of a misnomer, I think, as, really, they shout, loudly and raucously at this time of year, ‘Hey, girl! Look at me, look at me, look at me!’.
Meet the Cetti’s warbler (pronounced ‘chetty’ ) (Cettia cetti), named after the 18th-century Italian ornithologist Francesco Cetti, who first described it. It’s a bird that can usually be found near water, in the shrubs and reed beds that surround swamps and lakes or line the edges of rivers and streams.
Most of the year, the Cetti’s warbler is more of a skulker, producing its call from within dense vegetation, but, in the springtime, motivated by the need to find a mate, the males are much more visible.
They usually hold a small territory and, within that area, have favourite singing podiums/perches where they sit and call. And I find they follow the same route as they move around their patch so, if you spend a little time watching and listening, you can often catch them at one of their perches, as I managed to do with these two at RSPB Lodmoor last week.
24 Tuesday Mar 2026
The first thing I noticed, the first birds I heard as I approached RSPB Lodmoor on the first visit (last Monday afternoon, 16 March) of my most recent visit to Weymouth was the male Greenfinches that seemed to be singing from every tree top and tall shrub.
Singing Greenfinches may not sound too exciting to many of you but these birds were in serious trouble until very recently, and they are still red-listed in the UK, their population numbers plummeting due to the disease trichomonosis, which causes lesions in a bird’s throat and gullet, eventually leading to the bird not being able to feed and ultimately to its death. The disease is often more prevalent in garden birds because many people who feed their local birds don’t wash the feeders often enough, leading to the disease being passed on through contact with contaminated surfaces.
Fortunately, the Lodmoor Greenfinches have no need to visit the gardens of the houses that line one side of the reserve as they seem able to source enough food from the local vegetation; I spotted them picking out any remaining Hawthorn berries for the seeds within, and also picking at Blackthorn blossom, presumably for the newly forming fruit within.
I often find Greenfinches to be flighty birds but these males were so busy singing for mates and feeding up that I was able to get what are probably my best photos of them, and you can easily see why they are called Greenfinches.
22 Sunday Mar 2026
Tags
Allium triquetrum, Hyacinthoides hispanica, invasive plant, non-native invasive plant, Spanish bluebells, Three-cornered leek
Yes, the sight of a large field of flowering bluebells is the epitome of springtime but not when they are Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica), which are highly invasive non-native plants, and I do wish people in their home gardens and local authorities in public parks would stop their mass plantings of this species, especially if the area is near a woodland. As well as being invasive and out-competing native British bluebells, Spanish bluebells will also hybridise with them thus threatening the genetic integrity of the native species.
And the same goes for Three-cornered leeks (Allium triquetrum). They do look attractive, and many people who don’t know their plants well get one whiff of these plants and think they are Wild garlic (Allium ursinum), but Three-cornered leeks are another highly invasive non-native plant that will spread like wildfire if left unchecked. In fact, they are now such a problem that they are listed in Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, making it an offence to plant or cause them to grow in the wild.
17 Tuesday Mar 2026
The garden is busy with birds, large and small, flitting about the branches of the trees and large shrubs, peeking in to conveniently sized niches and crevices or picking out the perfect little twigs and small branches to fit into their planned constructions, searching for moss and lichen and dropped feathers to soften the interior of their chosen cavities or nests for the eggs and chicks soon to be laid within. Amongst them are the crevice-nesting Blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), lots of them, chasing each other, singing out their partnership claims, advertising their personal charms. I’m convinced, but did you know (thanks to the Woodland Trust website for this interesting snippet):
Like all birds, blue tits can see ultra-violet light – the front of their head glows brightly under UV light, and this is how females are thought to choose their partners.
15 Sunday Mar 2026
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
Tags
Anemone nemorosa, British wildflowers, Roath Park Lake, spring wildflowers, white wildflowers, Wood anemone
Wood anemone is meant to be ‘one of the most faithful indicators of ancient woodland’ and, from the plants I’ve seen previously that would seem mostly to be true.
However, the Wood anemones pictured here were something of an anomaly, growing on the sloping banks of the lake in Cardiff’s Roath Park. The lake is an artificial creation; the Nant Fawr stream was dammed in the early 1890s to create a lake over what was formerly a boggy marsh.
12 Thursday Mar 2026
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cormorant, Cormorant in breeding plumage, juvenile Cormorant, Phalacrocorax carbo
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.
earthstar 
You must be logged in to post a comment.