Category Archives: spring

A Little gull in the Bay

12 Tuesday Mar 2024

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With more than 1000 Black-headed gulls currently feeding in Cardiff Bay, it took some help from my birding friends for me to locate this gorgeous 2cy Little gull (Hydrocoloeus minutus) on Sunday, though yesterday I managed to find it for myself. You just need to get your eye in, as its flight is quite distinctive, and so too is its size and colouring. These events – this accumulation of Black-headed gulls and a fleeting visit from a Little gull – are quite normal for this time of year as the gulls pass through en route to their breeding grounds.

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A bumblebee and its mimic

11 Monday Mar 2024

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Though there was a cold nor’easterly wind blowing, occasional sunny periods brought out a few insects during my visit to Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park last Friday, and I was lucky enough to spot a couple of Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) queens feeding on Blackthorn blossom.

240311 buff-tailed bumblebee

Even better, on one tree I found one of Britain’s larger hoverflies, one that mimics bumblebees, a Large bearfly (Criorhina ranunculi), one that can often be seen in early Spring on the blossom of willows, Blackthorn and Wild cherry. This hoverfly’s tail end can be white, orange or red in colour (this one’s was reddish); to see these variations, and his superb images of this hoverfly, check out Steven Falk’s Flikr album.

240311 Criorhina ranunculi

Willow catkins

10 Sunday Mar 2024

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It’s that time of year when pussy willow – the gorgeous male catkins of the Goat willow (Salix caprea) and Grey willow (Salix cinerea) – is gracing the trees.

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In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that ‘Because so little else was in leaf or flowers at this early season [early Spring], sprays of sallow have frequently been used as “palm” to decorate churches at Eastertide.’

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Name that rosette, 2

03 Sunday Mar 2024

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I dipped my toe in to the ‘name that rosette’ waters very briefly back in February 2022 (Name that rosette, 1, 13 February 2022), very quickly realised it was much more difficult than I had anticipated, and yanked my toe rapidly back out again. However, this week’s challenge for #WildflowerHour on social media is about identifying plant rosettes, so I thought I’d have another try. I admit I chose plant’s that are relatively easy and cheated a bit by finding flower-less rosettes next to those with more advanced growth and flowers already beginning to bloom, which helped tremendously. So, I’m fairly confident that these rosettes are Bittercress (Cardamine sp) – not sure if it’s possible to tell at this stage which species this will become; Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale agg.); Lesser celandine (Ficaria verna); and Woolly thistle (Cirsium eriophorum).

240303 rosettes

Arctic tern

17 Monday Apr 2023

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Terns of any description rarely visit Cardiff Bay but, if they’re ever going to, now, on Spring passage, is the time of year for it to happen … and it did, for two days at the end of last week. (Terns do sometimes pop in on Autumn passage as well, depending on the weather.) The Bay has some very keen and knowledgeable resident birders so when one of those, Gareth, put out the word that he’d seen a tern in the Bay, thought it was an Arctic tern but didn’t have his ‘scope with him, other locals quickly headed down with their equipment to check it out. Arctic tern it was! (Common and Arctic terns can be tricky to tell apart, and the term ‘commic’, a combination of their names, is used by birders when uncertain.)

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Unfortunately, I couldn’t get there that afternoon so imagine my delight when word came through from Gareth again the next day that the tern was still showing. Though rain threatened and did, in fact, interrupt play a couple of times, I managed to find the tern. Sadly, it wasn’t giving the close views it had the day before and was mostly a small dot on the other side of the water until, when it decided to fly onwards, it flew almost directly over my head. A head-terning moment!

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The Boraginaceae

16 Sunday Apr 2023

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Finding flowering specimens of the Borage family was the target of this week’s Wildflower Hour. This family, the Boraginaceae, includes the various Forget-me-nots (Myosotis species), the Comfries (Symphytum species), Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis), Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare), the Gromwells (Lithospermum species), Green alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens), Borage (Borago officinalis), of course, and a few other species as well. Unfortunately, our wet Spring, the recent cold spell and storm mean many of these wildflower species are not yet flowering locally but I have managed to find three species.

Comfrey : I’m not sure which of the Symphytum species this is. It’s growing on the edge of a carpark so is probably a wind-blown garden escape or was perhaps seeded via a bird dropping.

Lungwort : Sadly, this isn’t a common plant locally – I only know of two locations where it grows. I wish there was more as the bees love it.

Forget-me-not : Did you know that the yellow ring at the centre of the Forget-me-not flower fades from egg-yolk yellow to white after pollination, which indicates to insects that there’s no more nectar and they should try another flower?

Rue-leaved saxifrage

09 Sunday Apr 2023

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Another week, another new plant – I’m on a roll!

230409 rue-leaved saxifrage (1)

This hairy little annual, with the sweet white flowers, is Rue-leaved saxifrage (Saxifraga tridactylites). Its three-lobed leaves (hence the tridactyl in its name) are quite distinctive and are often tinged with red, as are the plant’s stems.

230409 rue-leaved saxifrage (2)

In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that this saxifrage is widespread but declining, though the book is now 25 years old so I’m not sure if that is still the case. Certainly, it’s not a plant I’ve come across before in my meanderings and these few were growing on the much-overgrown route of a former railway line so could originally have been carried this way by a train.

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The weather effect

06 Thursday Apr 2023

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The weather effect? By 1 April last year, I’d clocked 63 butterflies of 7 species. This year I’d only recorded 13 butterflies of 4 species. As well as our very wet and cool spring, it seems that last year’s hot dry summer is also having a prolonged effect on butterfly numbers. Butterfly Conservation has warned that

Drought impacts the offspring of the butterflies that are flying during the hot dry weather by causing the plants that caterpillars rely on for food to wither and die. Without sufficient food, many caterpillars will fail to survive, leading to lower numbers of butterflies in the next generation. For some of the UK species that have more than one generation in a year, the resulting major decline in numbers has already been seen. However, for others, the next generation isn’t on the wing until this summer, meaning there could be noticeably fewer butterflies around in 2023.

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Imagine my delight then, when I finally spotted not one but my first two Speckled woods of 2023, a week later than last year. Let’s hope this year’s weather is a little more kind to our insect neighbours, though climate change is already affecting and will continue to affect them.

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Dark-edged bee-flies

05 Wednesday Apr 2023

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Apparently, today is #NationalDandelionDay. Dandelions are brilliant for so many reasons (I’ve blogged about their value to insects previously – see Delicious Dandelions, April 2022) but what better reason than the food they provide to all the gorgeous little bee-flies that are currently emerging all over the country.

230405 bee-fly male

These are Dark-edged bee-flies (Bombylius major), the only bee-fly species we have locally though there are other species in Britain. The top bundle of fluff is a male and the bottom is a female. The way to tell the sexes apart is to look at their eyes – if there’s a gap between the eyes, it’s a female. The males usually emerge first, with the females following a week to ten days later.

230405 bee-fly female