30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 17

I haven’t been to Wildlife Trust’s Lower Moor Farm since January, so I thought it was about time I made another visit and went along this afternoon.  I’m not sure if it was the weather or I just picked the wrong time of day but there didn’t seem to be much bird life about!  There was a cormorant sat on a post, a few woodpigeon’s flying from tree to tree, a black headed gull, a grey heron flew over and a family of mute swans were on Cottage lake.  There were smaller birds flitting from tree to tree but everything seemed to be hiding away in all the leaf cover.  

The most exciting event of the afternoon was spotting my first orchid – a common spotted-orchid.  I have probably seem them before but no knowingly so! 

Also there are loads of froglets! One poor little chap had got himself caught in spiders webs on the floor of the hide, so after carefully removing the web from his back legs I placed him safely back outside.  The walk back to the car was slow and careful, I counted 28 froglets 🙂

 

30 Days Wild 2017 – Days 21 – 25

Day 21 – I wanted to visit new places during 30 Days Wild, today I ventured to Stanton Park, Swindon; a 74-hectare country park and Local Nature Reserve. I headed out from the car park through the Great Wood. The first thing I spotted was a tiny froglet on the bark path, it only caught my eye because it moved when I got near. The Great Wood is quite an expanse of woodland, with some parts being quite dense.  I walked round the Leaf Trail and realised that most of the birdsong was coming from the edge of the woodland.  I walked on towards the lake, there were young Coots and Mallards with Swifts flying over, a Red Kite and Grey Herons.  On the path back to the car park there were many more froglets, unfortunately some had been trodden on!

Day 22 – I had some over ripe bananas left and rather than throwing them out I thought the butterflies would like them. The bananas ferment in the sunshine, the juices ooze out of slits I put in the banana skin which the butterflies will then drink. 

Day 23 – I managed to escape the office for a walk, taking the time to examine the plants shooting through the man made environment at work. 

Day 24 – Today there was a burst of little balls of fluff in the garden! The fledgling Long-tailed Tit’s have discovered the bird feeders 🙂  I have never seen quite so many of them in the garden before.  They all piled into the tree at once, feed on the fat balls, and slowly filter off again out of the garden.  They are often joined by the fledgling Blue Tits. 

Day 25 – After yesterday’s influx of Long-tailed Tits I thought it would be a good idea to complete a Garden Birdwatch to see what is exactly about at the moment and the numbers we are really getting. I was pleased to see a House Sparrow collecting a feather ready to nest again somewhere nearby.   I recorded my sightings for 30 minutes, there was no point in watching any longer as a Sparrowhawk flew through the garden and cleared it of all the other birds. I had wondered why we were low on Woodpigeon numbers, I guess they knew it was about!

1 Woodpigeon, 2 Robin, 1 Jackdaw, 3 Blackbird, 3 Blue Tit, 3 Goldfinch, 1 House Sparrow, 3 Rock Dove, 1 Dunnock, 1 Swift overhead, 1 Sparrowhawk!