Pond life and more flowers

A day of rain and cooler weather has meant that a few more flowers have come into bloom whilst others are over their best.
The bluebells in the wood at the Meade for instance have been beautiful for a couple of weeks or more but now their colour is fading for another year.

 Other blooms are appearing now, such as yellow archangel, a member of the dead nettle family which doesn't sting. Unlike the garden variety, it doesn't have variegated leaves, but the latter is often seen growing wild as an escapee.
It is a valuable food source for bees and insects and likes damp and shady spots.












Another plant that likes damp spots, such as wet meadows and river banks, and which is just coming out in bloom, is the Lady's smock or Cuckooflower. A delicate pale lilac /pink flower it is associated with the arrival and call of the cuckoo, though you will be very lucky to hear one around here these days as their numbers have sadly declined rapidly in recent years.








Moorhen activity in the pond in the Meade has been increasing and if you stand quietly on the bridge you may be lucky enough to see them building their nest ( or nests), as I did today. The male and female look alike but you may be able to tell them apart as the male often collects the nest material and the female builds the nest, though both will incubate the eggs once laid. Incubation lasts around 3 weeks, so watch out for the fluffy young in early May!

Sitting tight!

Warm weather effects

The warm weather over the last few days has had a dramatic effect on the trees, which are flowering or displaying fresh green leaves and making everyone feel more cheerful ( apart perhaps from those who suffer from tree pollen hayfever!).

 This lovely, but lone horse chestnut, looks splendid in full leaf in the centre of a field.

The old weather forecast saying "oak before ash there'll be a splash and ash before oak there'll be a soak" always has me checking out which has come into leaf first to see what sort of summer we might have. Trouble is by the summer I've forgotten which came first that year.
This week both have been in flower. Here is the ash, with its purple flowers but showing no obvious sign of leaves yet.

Here is the oak, and on closer inspection, its leaves are starting to uncurl, so fingers crossed it will be a dry summer! Let's wait and see.

Another sign of summer approaching, even if according to Aristotle, "one swallow does not a summer make" means we all still delight in seeing our first ones of the year returning safely after their long migratory journey from Africa.
This morning I saw two so was doubly happy!

Butterflies continue to appear, and whilst I have seen a number of male Orange tips on the wing in the last couple of weeks, they are all in such a great hurry to track down a female that they hardly ever land to feed. Fortunately this one stopped very briefly this morning for a quick meal of nectar before dashing off again.

 Once they do mate, the female, which doesn't sport the orange tips to her wings, will lay eggs on plants such as this Garlic mustard, also known as Hedge mustard and Jack by the hedge, which has begun to come into flower along the verges this week. 

Easter walk

Waking early, the sun already shining, I decided it was a good day to have a slightly longer walk than usual as, being Easter Sunday, the shops were closed as were the churches, so few people would have any reason to take to the roads and everywhere would be even quieter than it had been in the last few weeks with Lockdown.

I set off at 8am and only met a couple of dog walkers in the village before I headed uphill along a lane I rarely walked up in normal times, but today I was heading for a spot recommended by a keen local birder for a particular bird.

The fields had a few rabbits happily sunning themselves and lots of birds such as Dunnocks, Blackbirds, Robins, Blue and Great tits were singing as I went. Their songs so much easier to hear with the lack of the usual traffic noise in the background.

The first bird that I managed to photograph was a beautiful male Blackcap, singing his heart out.

He was quite shy and kept hopping out of view in the bushes alongside the lane, but patience paid off in the end. This, though a very nice sighting, was not my target bird and so I continued along the lane as I'd been advised to do.

I kept stopping every few yards to listen for a recognisable call,but whilst I was very pleased to hear and see skylarks above my head for the first time this spring, I had still not found the one I was hoping for.

Then suddenly there it was, the unmistakable phrase "little bit of cheese no bread", the song of the Yellowhammer! I haven't heard one within walking distance of home for a number of years and never at this particular spot. My birding friend had been absolutely right.
I walked along the lane a little further until I could actually see the bird and indeed I saw at least three whilst I hung about for some twenty minutes.

By now it was 9.30am and I still had over two miles to walk home so I set off at a faster pace than I had arrived. I saved time by walking back partly along a main road, which was deserted, unheard of normally and then back downhill into the village, stopping only to see if Mr Fox was about in his usual spot, and yes he was out hunting in the bright sunlight. He froze when he spotted me but didn't run off, perhaps realising I meant him no harm and anyway was too far away to catch him even I had wanted to.

Returning home after my 5 mile walk feeling very happy, it had certainly been worth the effort.

Busy birds

Spring is probably the busiest time of the year for our feathered friends.
They are either singing, or like this Goldfinch, displaying to attract a mate. Any song he was producing was lost though in the sound of other birds singing all round him, especially a noisy wren!

They may be collecting nesting material like this Dunnock

or, this House sparrow, which looks like he has grown a moustache and, like a number of my male friends at the moment, can't get to the barbers for a trim!

They may just be getting well fed, like this male Great spotted woodpecker in my garden,so they are in shape for the long haul of bringing up their young.

Whatever they are doing they seem to be constantly on the move from dawn to dusk and, with more time on our hands than usual for most of us, it is a good opportunity to relax and  watch and listen to them wherever you are.

Red kite sighting

Yesterday, while walking in the Clayhanger area, I noticed a large bird being mobbed by crows. Initially I thought it was a buzzard, the commonest bird of prey, but on closer inspection I realised it was a Red kite!. Now, we do see them occasionally in the area but I haven't seen one for some time so this was a good sighting, especially during this enforced lockdown!
I managed to get a rather juddery video, for which apologies,but hopefully you can see the forked tail as it circled.

Eventually it flew off eastwards and only then did I realise there were actually two red kites! Unfortunately it was too far away to get any more video evidence but this was definitely the first time I have ever seen two together in the parish.

Roadside flora

The warm weather in the last few days has encouraged more wild flowers to burst into bloom and some are really stunning, like this patch of Honesty.

When the flowers finish and dry out, the seed pods are a translucent circle that looks a bit like cellophane. Popular with florists for interesting displays.

Another flower I have seen appear recently along the verges is the common vetch, a member of the pea family. It has nitrogen fixing nodes and is grown for animal fodder and as a soil fertiliser.

The glossy, arrow shaped leaves of the Lords and Ladies, also known by various other names, such as Adam and Eve, Cuckoo pint and Jack in the Pulpit, have flower spikes which are beginning to unfurl. The appearance of the unfurled flower has led it to have some quite bawdy names, but in the autumn the fruit is a spike of orange berries which are quite attractive. 

Some recent garden visitors

Spending more time than usual in our garden recently has given me the opportunity to record some of the recent visitors, which have been quite varied.

This seven spot ladybird this made a welcome visit as so often the ladybirds we see in our gardens now are of the Harlequin type, an invasive species from  Asia. The latter out compete our native insects and will eat their larvae and eggs too.

We often come across slow worms in our garden and we have seen both tiny young and adults this week. They are neither worms not snakes as some think, but legless lizards. They can live for an average of 20 years and they don't tend to stray far from where they were born, perhaps an area of 200sq m. They particularly like warm spots to live in, such as a compost heap. You can attract them by providing a piece of corrugated iron laid on the ground in a sunny spot. Females incubate the eggs in their bodies and give birth to about 8 live which are about 4cm in length, like this one on the left. The adults, like the one on the right, can grow up to 50 cm.

 









The birds are getting very active now that spring is here and one bird that is calling loudly at the moment is the nuthatch. This is a very agile woodland bird that can work its way up and down as well as backwards and sideways along a trunk or branch, collecting insects in summer and retrieving nuts that it has hidden in cracks in the bark during winter.

It is a territorial bird and prefers woodland and gardens with mature trees, especially oak and beech.