Category Archives: spring

90/366 Dawdling

30 Monday Mar 2020

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As many of us are doing during our Covid-19 lockdown, and as I don’t have the solace of a garden, I’ve been spending a lot of time staring out my windows. And one thing that has been entertaining me has been the antics of a pair of Jackdaws who are nest-building in a neighbour’s chimney. They’ve chosen a great spot, well weather protected and in the house of a woman who constantly has her bird-feeders full.

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3 March. It was before the lockdown that I first noticed a little courtship grooming happening, and it was a couple more weeks before the couple decided to build a nest together.

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22 March. Structural work has begun. Twigs, large and small, are being carted in from various neighbourhood locations.

26 March. A+ for effort. E for spatial awareness. I thought Jackdaws were meant to be smart birds.

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29 March. Delivery of the soft furnishings has begun.

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30 March. Today, activity seems to have stepped up a notch. Not only have I seen this wool (?) being brought in but both birds have been in the tree in front of my house, breaking off live twigs to take to the nest.

I’ll keep watching and bring you another update soon …

89/366 This week’s new wildflowers

29 Sunday Mar 2020

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During this week’s walks, which have, of course, in our current lockdown situation, been shorter and much more restricted than my usual meanderings, my mood has been brightened by the sight of our beautiful flowering wild plants, especially those that have just come into bloom in recent days. They’re a heartening reminder of better times to come … eventually. These are those I’ve found this week.

200329 barren strawberry

Barren strawberry (Potentilla sterilis): It seems a shame that this species of strawberry doesn’t produce the luscious fruit we all enjoy in the summer months. Instead, its berries are small and quite hard.

200329 Common stork's-bill

Common stork’s-bill (Erodium cicutarium): I was delighted to spot these pretty little things. I’m a big fan of the whole Geranium family, the crane’s-bills and the stork’s-bills.

200329 dog-violet

Dog-violet (Viola sp.): The photos I took weren’t good enough for me to work out whether these are Early dog-violets or Common dog-violets but they’re pretty nonetheless.

200329 honesty

Honesty (Lunaria annua): When I had a garden I used to grow Honesty, partly for its lovely flowers but also to harvest the branches of seed pods once they’d dried. I love their fragility and the way they glisten in the sunshine. Their vernacular name, Moonpennies, is so appropriate.

200329 marsh marigold

Marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris): These were growing in the depths of a small dingle right in the middle of the town where I live, the flowers are little bright lights beaming up from the gloom.

200329 ramsons

Ramsons (Allium ursinum): That same valley where I found the Marsh-marigolds is also home to swathes of Ramsons, also known to many of us as Wild garlic. There must be thousands of these plants in the valley and along the sides of the stream bed that leads from there down towards the sea.

86/366 Dandelions and Brimstones

26 Thursday Mar 2020

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Here’s why it should be an offence to cut, spray or otherwise destroy blooming wildflowers – in this case, Dandelions, in particular.

200326 brimstone (1)

During yesterday’s daily exercise walk around Grangemoor Park I saw at least five Brimstone butterflies. These were all males, newly emerged from hibernation and already flying frantically back and forth along their chosen path-sides and hedgerows, seeking out females to mate with.

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As there aren’t yet many wildflowers in bloom at Grangemoor, when it came time to refuel for their next patrol flight, every single one of these Brimstones stopped and supped on Dandelion nectar. In fact, once I twigged to what they were doing, I took to checking every Dandelion I saw, just in case it held a butterfly. So, please, PLEASE, leave your Dandelions for the insects to feed on.

200326 brimstone (3)

83/366 Fabulous flying fuzzballs

23 Monday Mar 2020

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I wish I could take the credit for that title but it came from a tweet I read earlier today by the social media team at Buglife, The Invertebrate Conservation Trust.

200323 beeflies (1)

The tweet was reporting how the sunshine of the past couple of days has brought out the bee-flies and so it has been in my area too. Yesterday, on the sheltered slopes of a local park which, luckily, I had almost to myself, I saw my first four bee-flies of 2020.

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These are Dark-edged bee-flies (Bombylius major), the only species I’ve ever seen, and they were feasting on a glorious carpet of Lesser celandine and Speedwell.

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There are several other species of bee-fly, and a couple of similar non-bee-fly species. The BRC (Biological Records Centre) website has a most excellent photo identification guide that can be downloaded here. Good luck with finding some fabulous flying fuzzballs in your locale.

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82/366 Wildflowerhour : the Brassicas

22 Sunday Mar 2020

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This week’s challenge for #Wildflowerhour was to find as many of the Brassica family in flower as possible. I’m rather pleased with the number I’ve found, though I’m not 100% sure of my plant IDs, so if you think I’ve got any wrong, please do comment below. And I’ll edit this post if I need to, to reflect the corrected information.

200322 American winter-cress

American winter-cress (Barbarea verna): this is the identification I’m least confident about, as it’s a plant I’ve not seen before, and only a couple of flowers were actually open, but the leaf shape seems to fit.

200322 Common whitlow grass

Common whitlowgrass (Erophila verna): his plant is very common in my area but it’s one I often overlook because of its small size. It’s a pretty wee thing though.

200322 cuckooflowers

Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis): found earlier this week but this is a new photograph as I’ve since revisited the site. It’s certainly earlier in this particular location than in the other places I’ve usually found this plant, which, I suspect, is due to aggressive cutting by the local council in those other locations (Cardiff Bay and Hamadryad Park).

200322 hoary mustard

Hoary mustard (Hirschfeldia incana): Argh, so many plants that look similar! The only reason I’m reasonably confident about this one is that I’ve posted a photo of it previously on Twitter and an expert named it for me.

200322 sea radish

Sea radish (Raphanus raphanistrum ssp maritimus): This is another plant previously identified by one of the Twitterati and, though this was a slightly different location, it was also on the shores of Cardiff Bay so hopefully I’ve got this one right.

200322 wavy bitter-cress

Wavy bitter-cress (Cardmine flexuosa): The bitter-cresses always confuse me but, though it’s hard to see them, these flowers have six stamens, which is a key ID point to confirm this as Wavy rather than Hairy bitter-cress.

200322 Shepherd's-purse

Shepherd’s-purse (Bursa pastoralis): The purse-shaped seedpods of this lovely little plant make it unmistakable, thank goodness.

81/366 Number 3!

21 Saturday Mar 2020

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Yesterday’s walk around Cardiff Bay didn’t only bring nice birds, it also produced my second butterfly species for the year, a Small tortoiseshell. Unfortunately, the wind blew it away so quickly, twice, that I didn’t manage a photo. But I did get a couple of shots of today’s third species, this lovely Peacock. And I also saw number four, my first Brimstone, a male that was so intent on flying back and forth along the footpath trying to find a female that I only got a blurry shot of it. In these troubled times, it makes my heart sing to see the butterflies emerging again.

200321 Peacock

80/366 Today’s Bay birds

20 Friday Mar 2020

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Finally, we’ve had a rain-less day and, though there was a bitterly cold wind blasting across Cardiff Bay, I had to take advantage of the dry weather so walked an 8-mile circuit right round the Bay. The first highlight was my first two Wheatears of the year, a bit distant, and only popping up very briefly from amongst the huge Barrage boulders, but it was lovely to welcome them back for the summer.

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The Bay was buzzing with Sand martins – I must’ve seen at least 20, perhaps more, at various times during my wander, and it was a joy to watch their aerial antics.

200320 2 sand martin

Though it’s now several weeks since the big floods pushed a ton of rubbish into the Bay, the huge accumulations have still not been cleared. In fact, most of the rubbish slicks have seen no clearance action taken at all. The ONLY positive thing about this is that the Goldfinches and Linnets seem to be finding plenty of food amongst the garbage.

200320 3 linnet

I simply had to include this male House sparrow, as today is World Sparrow Day.

200320 4 sparrow

This lovely female Stonechat was dotting back and forth across the footpath through the wetlands reserve, and let me get quite close for photos. There was no sign of the male today though.

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78/366 Dainty beauties

18 Wednesday Mar 2020

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Yesterday’s star finds, during a walk around Grangemoor Park, were my first Cuckooflowers of 2020. They’re such dainty little beauties and, with a newly arrived Chiffchaff calling in the trees behind, it felt like Spring really had arrived.

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73/366 Egg-citing news

13 Friday Mar 2020

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Mr and Mrs Coot are pleased to announce the laying of three eggs! I can’t tell male from female Coot – I’m not even sure if it’s possible to tell which is which – but one of them was sitting tight on the nest when I visited this morning.

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However, this small area of water has two pairs of Coots in residence, and they are uneasy neighbours. First, they were simply trying to intimidate each other.

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Next thing you know, there’s a full scale battle underway.

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And the sitting Coot left the nest to join in the tussle, which is how I know there are three eggs.

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Luckily, the skirmish didn’t last long, and the eggs were soon safe and warm under their parent once more.

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