Cute cootlet

30 Thursday Apr 2026

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Coot, Coot chick

Though I’ve been hearing the hungry cheeping of tiny baby birds in nests obscured deep within dense vegetation, I’ve not seen a lot of chicks yet this year. I did see the first local Moorhen babies three weeks ago, on 8 April, but they were, wisely, mostly hiding amongst the reeds and my photos weren’t share-worthy. So, when I was walking along the boardwalk on the edge of Cosmeston’s east lake on Tuesday and heard a low peeping, I was delighted, when I cleared the dense reeds, to spot this well-grown Coot chick feeding with its parents. And just look at the size of that foot!

Nesting material

28 Tuesday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, spring

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bird's nesting material, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Great tit, Great tit with nesting material, nesting material

When, from a distance, I first spotted this Great tit, I wondered what on earth it was doing.

It was plucking constantly and vigorously at something on the ground that it was holding down with its feet.

The bird was so focused on what it was doing that it wasn’t bothered about my approach and I was able to get a series of photos before the bird flew off with its prize.

Reviewing my photos, I realised that the object the tit was plucking at was part of a tennis ball, most probably an old dog’s ball that had fallen apart and been abandoned. At least now it was proving useful to the Great tit as nesting material, and I rather liked the idea that the bird and its nest would be colour-coordinated.

Peak Wild garlic

26 Sunday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in insects, spring, trees, wildflowers

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Allium ursinum, British wildflowers, Comma, Cwm George woodland, Dark-edged bee-fly, Green-veined white, insects on Wild garlic, Ramsons, Wild garlic

It’s peak Wild garlic flowering time in my local green spaces, making a visit to my local park a culinary experience – the smell is so strong you can almost taste it in the air!

On Wednesday I went for a stroll through Cwm George woodland, a local hotspot for Wild garlic (or Ramsons, if you prefer; Allium ursinum), and it was just glorious.

The lush green swathes of Wild garlic, with their abundant brilliant white flowers, looked so picturesque carpeting the earth beneath the towering Beech trees and garlanding the edges of the woodland pathways.

And it wasn’t only the human visitors who were appreciating the profusion of flowers. Flies and bees of many species, hoverflies, butterflies and beetles were all lapping up this springtime feast.

The return of the Willow warblers

23 Thursday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, spring

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, spring migration, Willow warbler

Just before I heard my first two Willow warblers this year, I was attacked by a stray Bramble branch that somehow managed to wrap itself around my left ankle without my noticing so, when I kept walking, its grip tightened, and, despite my attempt at some fancy footwork to try to free my foot, I went crashing down hard on to a tarmac path. I was the April Fool, or at least I felt that way!

Fortunately, two passing cyclists helped this old lady up – getting up is the hardest part, I find, as I get older, and I began to hobble home. I’d only taken a few hesitant steps when I heard the birds, belting out their song from vegetation on one side of the path. It was as if Nature was giving me a little present, something to smile about, and a very welcome distraction from my rapidly swelling left knee and the pain that was starting to spread through my body.

Not surprisingly, the photos shown here were not taken that day but a week or so later, when I heard another Willow warbler singing at Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park, at a spot where a bird – the same bird? – had held a territory during each of the previous few summers. Their distinctive song is one of my favourite signs that the long fine days are returning.

NFY: Orange-tip

20 Monday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in insects, spring

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Anthocharis cardamines, British butterflies, butterfly, female Orange-tip, Orange-tip, Orange-tip butterfly, spring butterflies

Male Orange-tips (Anthocharis cardamines) emerge first (and, indeed, that’s true for most butterfly species) and, in their search for females to mate with, they fly almost continuously up, down and around a defined territory, a frustrating activity, both for the butterflies as they wait for females to hatch and for the photographer trying to get shots of them. In fact, it’s exhausting just watching the constant activity of these little creatures and, though they do pause briefly to refuel and rest, you have to be in the right place at the right time to catch them. So far this year, my patient watching has not been rewarded; I’ve only managed to get blurry images of males as they zoom past.

Fortunately, the females are much less active, often staying in close proximity to the plants where they lay their eggs. I found the beautiful female shown here, sitting on a large pile of clippings of tall grasses and wildflowers. She wasn’t moving much, just gently quivering her wings, so I wonder if she had only just emerged from the pupa in which she would have over-wintered. Isn’t she gorgeous?

All the yellows

19 Sunday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in flowers, plants, spring, wildflowers

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Alexanders, British wildflowers, Broom, Cowslip, Creeping buttercup, dandelion, gorse, Lesser Celandine, marsh marigold, Meadow buttercup, primrose, Sea radish, Spring colour, yellow wildflowers

The splendid sight of road verges gleaming with the brilliant yellow of blooming Dandelions is fast becoming just a wonderful memory as the council tractors and strimmers once again destroy any wildflowers they see in the name of ‘neat’ and ‘tidy’, and this despite the loss of some devastating percentage (50%?) of our insect populations in the last couple of decades. I grabbed some photos before everything started to disappear …

Alexanders: in places like the coastal path the only plant in flower so currently feeding a lot of small insects.

Broom: this might survive as it was in a park surrounded by Brambles.

Cowslips: in a country park so surviving, and looking very lush.

Creeping buttercup: gone.

Dandelion and Lesser celandine: prime targets for destruction.

Gorse: these tend to survive until the flail gets used.

Marsh marigold: a small survivor from a more numerous population, where a volunteer group decided they would build a dead hedge. Make it make sense!

Meadow buttercup: gone.

Primrose: these tend to survive while they’re flowering, then it’s off with their heads!

Sea radish: on the Barrage so not strimmed but the many dogs like to pee on them.

My first Holly blue

10 Friday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in insects, spring

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British butterflies, butterfly, Celastrina argiolus, first blue butterfly, Holly blue

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.

Chiffchaffs chiffchaffing

04 Saturday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, spring

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Chiffchaff, spring bird song, spring migration

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.

Thrift

29 Sunday Mar 2026

Posted by sconzani in seaside, spring, wildflowers

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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).

The day of the Wheatears

28 Saturday Mar 2026

Posted by sconzani in birds, spring

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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.