Category Archives: winter

Target acquired

14 Wednesday Jan 2026

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I do love it when a plan comes together. I’ve now found most of the common bird species that inhabit my local area so I’m being more focused when planning my daily walks, trying to look specifically for particular species. This is when it helps that, after 10 years in the area and many hundreds (thousands?) of miles of walking its trails, I know my patch very well.

Though I try to avoid going to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park at the weekend (too many people and dogs), last Saturday was a glorious sunny day, the forecast for the following week looked quite grim, and I knew that the outer fields were usually relatively empty of visitors.

That was also where I figured I had the best chance of finding my target species, the Stonechat, as the habitat of the tree plantation that was planted about five years ago is perfect for chat species; they can perch up on the shrubs, tall grasses and smaller saplings while looking for insect prey to flit down and snap up. As soon as I went through the kissing gate into the plantation up she popped, this gorgeous female Stonechat; it was the perfect birding moment. And my pleasure continued as she moved around the field, with me following discretely behind, admiring her hunting skills and looking for photo opportunities. I particularly like my second photo, with the blurred pink hips of a Field rose as her backdrop. .

First beetles

13 Tuesday Jan 2026

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Though I’ve mostly been focusing on finding new bird species during this first couple of weeks of 2026, I have also, when the sun has been shining, been keeping an eye out for any bugs or beetles that might have emerged briefly to bask in its relative warmth. So far, that has proved fruitless, and my first beetle sightings of the new year have actually been here at home, in my flat – in fact, as I type this I can see one of them walking along one of the living room blinds. They are ladybirds – all have been Harlequin ladybirds (Harmonia axyridis) – that came flooding in through my open windows just as the winter days began to get colder.

This is quite normal – ladybirds look for places to sleep away the wintery weather. I don’t mind them doing this in my flat apart from one issue; during those blue-sky days when the sun is out all day, my south-facing flat gets quite warm and the ladybirds wake up and start wandering about, looking for a way to get outside again. I have ejected five that seemed particularly agitated, flying in to the glass again and again, but there are at least two still lurking on the blinds or amongst my house plants.

Blackthorn in bloom

11 Sunday Jan 2026

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This winter season continues to provide phenological surprises. I saw my first Blackthorn blossom on Christmas Eve, during a quick visit to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park to provide an early Christmas dinner of berry-flavoured suet pellets to my crow friends.

And then, during yesterday’s walk, which took me through fields perhaps half a mile north of the country park, I found another Blackthorn tree with blossom open on a couple of its branches – this despite several very cold days and a bit of blasting from (though we missed the worst of) Storm Goretti.

Weevil: Mecinus pyraster

10 Saturday Jan 2026

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I almost ate this with my lunch! I had eaten my sandwich and was just about to pick up and bite in to an apple when I spotted this creature tootling across my plate. I assumed it had come home with me from the supermarket, lurking in the packaging with the apples or perhaps the plums.

Using the weevil identification guides on the UK Beetle recording website, I was able, fairly quickly, to work out that it was probably Mecinus pyraster, and this identification has since been verified. Also known as the Stem Miner weevil, this little fellow is usually found on grasses, in particular Plantain, so it’s a bit of a mystery how it made its way to my plate but I’m happy to report that it’s now living its best life in the grasses outside my house.

Red in beak and claw

09 Friday Jan 2026

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The images in this post are a bit gory so look away now if you’re squeamish.

If you’ve ever wondered why the correct name for the crow is Carrion crow, this is why.

I found these three birds living up to that name, taking turns to devour what looked like a dead rat, or some other small mammal, most likely road kill from the adjacent road.

I was surprised the birds weren’t arguing over their bloody prize, so I assume they were probably related, perhaps siblings.

I was on the other side of a fence from these Carrion crows but, even so, I was able to get very close to them as they were so focused on their tasty lunch.

Who’s watching who?

08 Thursday Jan 2026

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Am I watching the Sparrowhawk or is the Sparrowhawk watching me?

I was checking the rather boggy area near these trees and shrubs for any lurking Snipe (none seen) when I was distracted by a rustling in the branches. A bird flew out and away up the field, and I quickly realised it was a Sparrowhawk from its flight pattern (flap, flap, glide). Then, I got the feeling I was being watched and turned to find this second Sparrowhawk still sitting in the trees.

Springtail: Orchesella cincta

07 Wednesday Jan 2026

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Deep-diving in leaf litter has become a favourite pastime when the days are short, the birds aren’t showing themselves, and the insects are few … except in the wet muddy depths of the decaying leaves where so many spend their winters as larvae, and where adult springtails abound. This springtail, Orchesella cincta, which had crawled from the leaf litter on to a metal fence, was a new find for me in December.

A good year for Redwings

06 Tuesday Jan 2026

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The local berry trees and shrubs – Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Buckthorn and, in parks and gardens, also Cotoneaster and Firethorn – have an abundance of fruit this winter, which means we have a corresponding abundance of thrushes feasting on those berries.

I find our winter visitors, the beautiful Redwings (Turdus iliacus), quite skittish birds, often difficult to get close to. And even when I do manage to sneak up on them, their bodies are frequently obscured, at least in part, by the branches and twigs of the trees in which they’re perched.

So, I was particularly pleased to spot this bird, which was so intent on the delicious Hawthorn berries it was devouring that it didn’t initially notice my approach so I was able to get several reasonably sharp images before a nearby Blackbird suddenly raised the alarm and the whole tree erupted with panicking birds.

p.s. As I’ve been writing this, I’ve just noticed 2 Redwings in the trees opposite my flat, a new bird for the house list.

First birds

04 Sunday Jan 2026

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As one of the people I follow on social media so aptly wrote: ‘Birdy folk do love a list. Especially a list that can be wiped clean and started afresh’. And, though I’m not by any means one of those obsessive listers who drive all over the country just to add a bird to their list, I do enjoy the challenge of walking around my local patch seeing what I can find for my new year’s list of bird species.

In recent years, when the weather has allowed, I’ve started the year with a circuit of Cardiff Bay, and that’s exactly how I began 2026. A bitterly cold wind was blowing out of the north west, which probably accounts for some missed birds – I think the resident Raven pair were probably huddled near their perch and the Linnets had found somewhere more sheltered to forage, but my total by the end of an eight-and-a-half-mile walk was a very respectable 43 species.

The highlights for me were, firstly, a Treecreeper (my first photo above) that I spotted on a street tree just a block from home – they can be quite difficult to find locally, but that was the second one I’d seen on local street trees in the past week.

Redshanks are one of my favourite bird species and, though I’ve seen several foraging for food on the mudflats outside Cardiff Bay Barrage this winter, the three birds that were stationed along the Ely River embankment on New Year’s Eve and again on New Year’s morning were the first I’d seen within the Bay itself. They tend only to come in during very cold weather.

Black redstarts have been absent from the Bay so far this winter, so local birders were very pleased when this female was located on 30 December, and very relieved that she decided to stay in to the new year. The same could be said of the Goldeneye pair that have been in the Bay on and off for a couple of weeks; fortunately for those of us birders who do love a list, they appeared together on New Year’s day. And so it began …

Fungi: Black bulgar

24 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by in autumn, fungi, winter

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I went looking for Fly agaric, the mushroom everyone recognises but which is surprisingly uncommon where I live; I found none but, almost immediately on arrival at north Cardiff’s Cefn Onn Park, I did spot this large log covered in small black button-like fungi.

These are the fruit of the fungus Black bulgar (Bulgaria inquinans), also known as Rubber buttons and Bachelor’s buttons. According to the First Nature website, they are known as Black Jelly Drops or Poor Man’s Licorice in the United States, though the site also cautions readers not to be fooled by those names – these fungi are not edible and may, indeed, be toxic.

As you can see in the photo above, the fruit bodies look a bit like short tacks; they start out flat on top but come to resemble little cups. The outer surface is, initially, brown and scaly looking but, as they age, they become black, blobby when wet, but tougher and rubbery when dry. Black bulgar is described as common, and can be seen, mostly on fallen Oaks but also on a few other tree species, from autumn through to spring.