21 Wednesday Apr 2021
There’s something quite startling about a tiny blue creature flying through your field of vision – it’s certainly eyecatching. I saw my first Holly blue of the year during Sunday’s meander but that one didn’t linger for a photograph. Yesterday, in a location where I didn’t see any last year, they were like buses – I saw four in total, including these two that floated in together.
18 Sunday Apr 2021
Posted in spring, trees, walks, wildflowers
Tags
Bluebells, British wildflowers, Herb-Paris, Lesser Celandine, Moschatel, Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage, Spring colour, spring wildflowers, Wild garlic, Wood anemone, woodland wildflowers
I thought for this week’s Sunday wildflower post, I’d take you on a walk through parts of my local woodlands to show you some of the gorgeous plants a’blooming there at the moment. There are other wildflowers too, of course – Primroses, Violets, Dog’s-mercury, etc – but my video features Wild garlic, Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage, Wood anemone, Herb-paris, Lesser celandine, Moschatel and Bluebells.
16 Friday Apr 2021
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
Tags
British wildflowers, Bush vetch, Garlic mustard, Herb Robert, Honesty, Red campion, Shining crane's-bill, Spring colour, spring wildflowers
These gorgeous wildflowers are now blooming in the sunnier, more sheltered spots I pass on my daily walks:
Bush vetch (Vicia sepium), the first of the vetches I’ve seen this year.
Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), also known as Jack-by-the-hedge
Honesty (Lunaria annua), originally a garden escapee but now naturalised in the local countryside
Red campion (Silene dioica)
Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum) and, below, its cousin, Shining crane’s-bill (Geranium lucidum). As you can see, the flowers of these two are very similar but the leaves are quite different.
14 Wednesday Apr 2021
Tags
British butterflies, Green-veined white, Lavernock Nature Reserve, Orange-tip butterfly, Orange-tip male, spring butterflies
With the help of a little warm sunshine, Lavernock Nature Reserve came up trumps for me yesterday, as I found my first Orange-tip and Green-veined white butterflies for 2021, two of each. So beautiful, so lucky!
13 Tuesday Apr 2021
Tags
British insects, Common Green Shieldbug, Exapion ulicis, Gorse weevil, Green shieldbug, Palomena prasina
Slowly, slowly, more insects are emerging. When I was getting a Gorse photo for last Sunday’s yellow wildflower challenge, this teeny tiny Gorse weevil (Exapion ulicis) paid a visit. I’m not sure if it was getting salt from my hand as it seemed quite reluctant to leave.
And yesterday I was scanning a Buddleja for leaf mines when I had the feeling I was being watched. This Common green shieldbug (Palomena prasina) was very well camouflaged sitting perfectly still on its leaf.
12 Monday Apr 2021
It was famous English pastoral poet John Clare who gave the Blackcap its ‘March Nightingale’ name, and quite rightly. The male Blackcaps’ melodious warbling can be heard from every bush and tree top as soon as they arrive back in Britain from over-wintering in Spain or North Africa, and that arrival is usually a month or earlier than the true Nightingale, which, sadly, many of us never see these days. So, enjoy the Blackcaps while you may for soon they’ll be too busy nest-building and chick-rearing to find much time for singing.
A brief pause to refuel then more singing …
11 Sunday Apr 2021
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
This week’s Wildflower Hour challenge was to find yellow-flowered wildflowers currently in bloom. Here are my finds – a blast of spring sunshine to enjoy this Sunday evening:
Colt’s-foot, Dandelion, Gorse
Lesser celandine, Marsh marigold, Meadow buttercup
Groundsel, Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (perhaps a bit of a stretch to say this is yellow, but it does have ‘golden’ in its name), Yellow archangel
Prickly sow-thistle, Cowslips, Ragwort
Pushing the envelope on these ones but … Alexanders (greenish-yellow), Primrose (buttery yellow), Pussy willow (not strictly a wildflower, but I’m having it)
10 Saturday Apr 2021
Butterfly species seven and eight for the year for me are the gorgeous Peacock (I saw five on one of the few days we actually had some warm sunshine) and that lover of the woodland edge, the Speckled wood (two now seen – more will surely follow, when the sun returns).
09 Friday Apr 2021
Posted in flowers, plants, spring, wildflowers
Tags
ancient woodland, British wildflowers, Herb-Paris, Paris quadrifolia, spring wildflowers, wildflowers in ancient woodland
During my weekly walks in local ancient woodland, I’ve been monitoring the development of this plant, watching it arise from the damp soil, waiting for its leaves to grow and its flower to emerge … and yesterday the first of the blooms were finally open.
This is Herb-paris (Paris quadrifolia), and I think you can see the reason I have been so keen to see these stunning flowers again.
Their structure is remarkable, a combination that Richard Mabey describes thus in Flora Britannica: ‘a star of four very narrow yellow-green petals and four wider sepals, topped by a crown of eight golden stamens, and later a single shining black berry – the “devil-in-the-bush” that was one of the plant’s obsolete names’.
The plants are looking particularly abundant this year and many flowers have yet to open so I will definitely be returning to feast my eyes on these beauties many times before they disappear for another year.
08 Thursday Apr 2021
Tags
birding, birds nesting in Cardiff Bay, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Cardiff Bay Wetland Reserve, Coot, Great Crested Grebe, Great crested grebes mating
Great crested grebes are featuring here twice in one week but I can never resist a good story. When I arrived at Cardiff Bay wetlands yesterday, a pair was in the reeds near the boardwalk.
The female was lying flat across the beginnings of a nest platform, making odd groaning noises. Having seen this before, I knew what was going to happen next …
And it did. After a few minutes, the male jumped up on top of her and they proceeded to mate.
The dismount with grebes would never score well in a gymnastics competition – the male sort of slides off, pushing the female’s head under the water.
You could almost hear their after-thoughts: ‘Better get on with the nest building’, and both birds began gathering twigs to place on the nest.
But a nearby Coot was having none of it. He didn’t want these noisy characters for neighbours and, faster than the grebes could place twigs on the platform, he was pulling them off again.
There was a stand-off, much posturing and squawking, and eventually the male grebe charged the Coot. The grebe thought it had won but the Coot didn’t retreat far. The grebes might keep trying but my money’s on the Coot to win this territorial battle.
earthstar 
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