14 Friday Feb 2020
Love is in the air for the Black-headed gulls, as many have already completed the change to their breeding colours, their head plumage morphed from (mostly) winter white to the chocolate brown (not black) of summer. It’s little wonder people find identifying (not sea)gulls confusing when they are so misleadingly named.
Here’s a link to a blog from 2016 that shows the change process in photographs.
09 Sunday Feb 2020
Posted in nature, spring, wildflowers
Tags
Alexanders, British wildflowers, Cherry plum blossom, crocus, Dog's mercury, Lesser Celandine, snowdrop, Spring blossom
This week’s wanderings produced sightings of two new wildflowers for the year, Dog’s mercury (Mercurialis perennis), thriving under a hedgerow, and Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum), an exceedingly common plant along the local coastal path.
I’d seen Crocuses already but this swathe, growing on a small green in the village of Michaelston-le-Pit, was a lilac delight.
Not a wildflower, but the local Cherry plum trees have burst into bloom this week. They say Spring to me!
Snowdrops are out en masse now, and more and more bursts of bright yellow Lesser celandines can be found, sprinkled along paths and in the local woodlands. So cheery!
04 Tuesday Feb 2020
Posted in nature, spring, wildflowers
Today’s walk produced yet more evidence of our changing climate in the form of another very early Spring flower, this time Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium), which my wildflower guide tells me shouldn’t be flowering for at least another month.
Today’s location was typical of this plant’s favoured habitat: in woodland, along the edges of a well-shaded small stream. Its liking for damp conditions is perhaps one of the reasons it grows best in western parts of Britain and is less common in the eastern counties.
It can be confused with its cousin Alternate-leaved golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium alternifolium) – the key thing, as the names suggest, is to check the arrangement of the leaves. In the first photo and the one below you can see how the pairs of leaves are growing opposite each other along the stem. You can only see its slightly odd flowers – they have no petals, just eight yellow stamens.
23 Thursday May 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, spring
Tags
#365DaysWild, British dragonflies, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, dragonflies, dragonfly, Four-spotted Chaser
I’ve spotted a few dragonflies already this year – a Broad-bodied chaser at Lavernock last Monday and a couple in other places that have zoomed past so quickly I’ve not been able to follow or find them – but today the Four-spotted chasers were out in force at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park.
I counted four scooting around the Dragonfly Pond but, as it’s fenced off (rightly so, as I’m sure irresponsible dog owners would otherwise allow their pets to swim in the pond, as they do at other nature reserves), I couldn’t get close enough for reasonable photos. I was actually pleased to get the flight shot above, as they’re never easy.
Then, after I’d moved away from the pond and was searching instead for butterflies, this beauty flew past and landed in a nearby tree, and I managed to grab a few quick photos before it raced off again. It’s such a treat to have the dragonflies out and active again!
08 Wednesday May 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers
Tags
#365DaysWild, blue flowers, blue wildflowers, British flora, pink flowers, pink wildflowers, wildflowers
Rain, rain, rain today but I managed to get out for a local bimble without getting too wet.
Due to the risk of rain damaging my good camera, I just took my point-and-click and, as there weren’t many insects braving the weather, the subject today had to be inanimate, in this case wildflowers, for no particular reason in shades of pinks and blues. Can you name them?
06 Monday May 2019
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
~ from the poem ‘The Lark Ascending’ by English poet George Meredith, 1881
03 Friday May 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, spring
Tags
#365DaysWild, British insects, Dock bug, Eristalis sp, Green shieldbug, harlequin ladybird, hoverfly, insects on bramble, Nursery web spider, Speckled wood, Syrphus sp, wasp
Ingredients: 1 patch of Bramble, lashings of sunshine, a tablespoon of warmth, a dash of Springtime
Method: Stand and stare
Result: Nursery web spider, Dock bug, hoverfly (Syrphus sp.), Speckled wood butterfly, Green shieldbug, bee species, another hoverfly (Eristalis sp.), Harlequin ladybird, and wasp (Vespula sp.).
02 Thursday May 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, spring
Tags
#365DaysWild, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Barrage, Cardiff Bay, spring migration, Wheatear
Finally, I spotted a Wheatear on the Cardiff Bay Barrage rocks this morning. Other birders have been seeing them on and off for a month or so now, as they pass through on their way back from wintering in central Africa to their breeding grounds in Britain’s sunlit uplands. I certainly didn’t expect to find one this late in the spring, so I count myself extra lucky to have seen this little beauty today.
01 Wednesday May 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, spring
Tags
#365DaysWild, bird boxes, birding, birds feeding chicks, birdwatching, Blue tit, British birds, Great tit
I spent some time in the churchyard surrounding St Augustine’s Church today, enjoying the wonderful wildness of this lovely place, which is now being managed in a way that enhances its flora and fauna. And it’s working a treat! The grounds are awash with wildflowers and the bird boxes are full of new life.
I admit I did feel a little sorry for the bird parents though. They have to work so hard to feed their chicks – it’s like they’re stuck in a loop: search frantically for food, deliver food, remove pooh, repeat!
30 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, spring
I love it when a plan comes together. I’ve been thinking for a couple of days that it must be getting close to the time that the Dingy skipper butterflies (Erynnis tages) start to appear so, as it was quite warm this morning, I specifically went to Cosmeston, to a sheltered spot where I’ve seen them in the past, to look for my first Dingy of the year. It took a bit of searching, standing and watching for movement, and I was starting to think I wouldn’t find any but then, just like the proverbial buses, two came along at once.
A tip if you’re looking for these – if you see one, don’t take your eyes off it. They are so well camouflaged that they just disappear into the foliage and you can be a foot away and not see them.
earthstar 
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