Bits and Pieces

Birding is still mostly in the garden with the lockdown extended, luckily the birds are being outstanding and entertaining. Plus on a weekend we've walked a little further than the park behind the house, I don't have much time to walk before work - I can't manage to get myself up and out earlier to have anything more than half an hour! The park hasn't had the grass cut in weeks now and it's full of Dandelions and Daisies, it looks wonderful and i've seen quite a few butterflies out on the flowers.

We're still getting out early on a weekend too so it's nice and quiet walking to Dartmouth Park. Actually to be fair it's always quiet early morning on all of my walks so far! I spotted my first fledgling birds there - two Mistle (I think) Thrushes in the trees. Our gutter Starlings now have several noisy birds in the nest, I saw them taking food to the nest but it took a couple of days before they were chirping loud enough so I could hear them.

The Sparrows are going a little mad in the back garden, usually they tend to stick to the front and the window feeders but I think with the immense amount of Aphids on the plants at the moment they're making the most of the feast, there's rarely a minute in the day where there isn't at least one picking at something! There's been a fair bit of Tit activity too, the Aphids are proving popular! Plus we've had the odd visit from both a male and female Blackcap but not on the same days.

Blackcap

Blue Tit

House Sparrow

Long-tailed Tit

We've had quite a bit of warm weather over April and i've noticed Bees filling holes in the wall and Bee hotel, last years haven't hatched yet but I keep checking.

My daughter spotted this Caterpillar on some nettles behind our house

I keep checking the skies for House Martins, Swallows and perhaps a Swift but not a single one yet. We usually have House Martins that nest locally and we see them over the houses through the summer. Swallows are a bit hit and miss near the house but are probably back on the farm near work, they usually are the last week in April. It may be that I see Swifts before the others this year. I have seen a few Gulls, Red Kite and Buzzards but really the skies are pretty empty.

I've been taking photos of all the flowers I see on my walks to try and have a go at iding them for the 20 in 2020 challenge I set myself here. Here's what I have so far and hopefully i've got them right -

2. Red Valerian - this is everywhere at the moment, in my garden, down the back streets and car park near my house, I love the colour, it's quite a striking flower and good for the bees and butterflies. I looked it up and discovered this plant originally comes from the Mediterranean and has been in the UK since at least the 1500s

3. Cuckoo flower or Lady's Smock. There was just a single plant near the road side.

4. Hairy Bittercress - I found a few of these on waste ground on one of our walks

5. Black Medick - I think i've got this one correct, I did think Lesser Trefoil at first? I've only noticed one patch of this whilst i've been out.

6.Groundsel - Lots of this all over, mostly on the edge of paths

7. Herb Robert - this is poking out of walls all over the streets.











Ok so i'm adding these but I know what they are, I haven't been able to see all the Bluebells in Churwell Woods but noticed some in the grass by the entrance to the park. Plus the ones in my garden are about to flower.

Cow Parsley

Bluebells

Hopefully next time I post we'll have some Starling fledglings in the garden and the sky will be full of Swifts!

20 in 2020

I saw an idea on Amanda's blog here earlier this year about doing 20 things in 2020, so decided to do a variation on this with a couple of different lists.

Though I read voraciously it's usually fiction and in the crime/thriller genre, I have huge reading piles and a lot of generally nature related non-fiction in these piles so i'm making the effort to read at least a couple of non-fiction books in between the fiction! In theory this should give me 20 (at least) books this year. So far it's working well -

1) Wham and Me by Andrew Ridgeley - ok so this is not nature related, it was a Christmas gift and one i'd been looking forward to reading, Wham were my favourite band as the 80's child that I was! I won't go on about it but if you're a fan it's a definitely a book you should read!

2) Effin Birds by Aaron Reynolds - this was also a gift from a lovely friend who had received it to review and knew how much I liked my birds. It's not a bird book in the usual sense in it being quite sweary and silly really, the illustrations are quite wonderful and fun but it's not a book for everyone!

3) The Stationary Ark by Gerald Durrell - I read every Durrell book I could get my hands on at the local library growing up  (more than once) and picked this one up in a charity shop last year. Once I started reading I realised I hadn't actually read this before. It's an interesting book with a lot of very forward thinking for the role of Zoos for a time when Zoos were not into conservation and most wouldn't even entertain the idea. Of course zoos are still controversial in some quarters but there is no doubt that Durrell was trying (and succeeding) in making things better.

4) The Wild Remedy by Emma Mitchell - I've followed this lady on twitter for quite a while after she popped up in my timeline with her lovely nature filled tweets. I bought the book when it came out last year and i'm so glad I did. It chronicles a year in her life and how nature helps with her depression. The writing is beautiful and a lot of it resonates with how I feel when just watching the garden birds or taking a walk and seeing the simple things like trees in bud, hidden flowers, first Swallows. It is a really wonderful book and one i'd 100% recommend.

I'll add to the list as the year goes on, (i'm half way through my fifth book right now) i'm not a book reviewer (I'm not good at writing and expressing with the right words) but hopefully you may feel like picking up at least one of the books from my list! Plus putting this out on my blog motivates me to keep up with getting through my very large to read pile! (I've got to admit though with everything going on at the moment i'm struggling to concentrate to read anything!)

I also decided to do another 20, this one 100% nature based - learn 20 new wild flowers, I used to be so good with wild flowers when I was younger but somehow seem to have forgotten the names of even the more common ones that pop up through the year. At the moment of course Snowdrops, Crocus and Daffodils have been dominating the landscape but I have also seen my first Marsh Marigold in the woods early March, i'm looking forward to refreshing my memory and relearning things I really shouldn't have forgotten!

So far though the only one i've come across that I struggled to name was the following -

1) Coltsfoot - this was by the sea in Scarborough, in full flower and plenty of it too











It's a start, we'll see how it goes over the coming months with my world restricted mostly to the garden and the small nearby park at the moment!

30 Days Wild Days 10 & 11 & A Walk in the Park

Yesterday I spent time at my parents and managed a quick walk around their garden in between the showers. The trees are full of plums and cherries and they have lots of strawberries too. They leave the cherries for the Blackbirds but we all get a share of the rest! Bees have taken up residence in the compost bin so they've stayed away and let them be, I could see plenty of them about on the Cotoneaster but they were constantly on the move.

This morning I was up and off for a walk around a couple of the parks in Morley. I saw a few Swifts on the way. There were lots of branches and twigs on the ground, the trees here took quite a battering in the winds this week. Still there were plenty of birds and some were making use of the twigs lying about as I saw Woodpigeons and Song Thrush nest building!

In both parks I saw Blue Tit fledglings, but they were pretty well hidden in the trees. You can't mistake the noise though.

Back home and a pair of Collared Doves landed on the top of the feeder, they take a while to make the decision to actually go on the seed tray. This one ended up sliding down the piece of wood we have propped through the feeder and used it's tail feathers for balance whilst it ate.

The Lavender is blooming at the moment, it was covered in Cuckoo spit mid week and it looked gorgeous in the sun this evening. The yellow plant was already there when we moved in and we've just let it, it's spreading up and down the flower bed and looks great with the purple of the Lavender, I don't know what it is though!

Just had a lovely moment watching the fox from the open patio doors, a few feet away at the feeder, it kept an eye on me but seemed quite happy to eat there.

Churwell Urban Woodlands

I've managed a stroll through the woods before work a couple of times recently and also spent a morning exploring with my daughter.

Early morning visits mean it's very quiet and peaceful with only the odd dog walker around. Most of my time was spent down towards the Smools Lane end of the woods, it's my favourite place, you can almost imagine you're miles from anywhere (if you ignore the noise of the motorway traffic!).



The woods down by the beck are full of Wrens and Blackbirds. I also spotted Blue and Great Tits and fair few Woodpigeons. Both times I visited the sun was out which brought out the butterflies, Commas, Speckled Wood and Large Whites.

There were also lots of Hover Flies, Green Bottles and Soldier Beetles.

The flowers are everywhere. Along the beck i'm not sure what is natural and what has been planted (if anything) but it all looks good.

On the most recent visit we spent a bit of time exploring further down the field that runs along the motorway towards the bottom of Churwell.

It was full of flowers...................

..................and butterflies including some i've not seen in the Morley area before. Small Copper, Ringlet, Meadow Brown, Small White and the usual Speckled Wood and Large White.

In the beck a brown rat was having a bit of a bath and in the trees above a pair of squirrels were running across the branches.

As usual we saw Wrens, Blackbirds and Woodpigeons as we walked. It's difficult to get a decent photo of the Wrens with the trees in full leaf, i'm looking forward to what's around when Autumn arrives and the leaves start to fall!