Thursday 4th June 2015

Due to a technical difficulty, no ladder!, I was unable to visit the nest boxes in the Upper Thames Valley today, so I decided to carry on with a survey I started on a piece of Calcareous grassland in the Cotswolds.


Cow Parsley

Quaking Grass

The weather at last seems to have turned a corner and it was pleasure to be out, although still too early for the main flush of Orchids there were signs of Common Spotted and Greater Butterfly and Common Twayblade orchids, as well as Field Forget-me-Not, Horseshoe Vetch, Germander Speedwell and Meadow Buttercup.


    

Field Forget-me-Not
 
 
 
 
 
 

Greater Butterfly Orchid
 
 
 

Garden Chafer
 
 

Kidney Vetch
 
 

 
 Lapwing, once a common nesting bird on many farms, often seen in flocks during the winter months.
 



Wednesday 3rd June 2015

Not much going on today, still house hunting so organising viewings has been the priority.

I did notice the Blue Tits were being particularly noisy and when I looked it was clear they are soon going to fledge the nest and take their chances in the garden.

I had planned to ring them but with the weather having been so cool and windy I left them, and its too late now!!!

Tuesday 2nd June 2015

Spent Monday and Tuesday at Acorn Ecology, in Exeter Devon on a protected species surveying techniques course.

Despite the weather cancelling a planned bat walk/survey the two days went well with Otter, Badger, Dormouse, Bats and all the Reptiles being covered off.

The reptile session included looking under "reptile mats" for the little critters where we found two Slow worms and a Grass Snake given the weather I think we did well.

The Dormouse exercise involved checking nesting tubes, to everyone's surprise one of the tubes contained a part built Dormouse nest (the tubes have been in place for three years and this was the first time one had shown any signs of occupancy).

Saturday 30th May 2015

We have been house hunting today in Wales, with little success, as for the next few days I am away on an European Protected Species (EPS) surveying course in Exeter so no blog until Wednesday I guess.

Thursday 28th May 2015

This morning was looking like a good time to do a spot of birding, ok I go birding every week!!!

I went down to Slimbridge WWT, and was in the hides by 08:10hrs, when I went to the Robbie Garnett hide there was nothing to note within seconds a chap in the hide asked "is that a phalarope", a quick scan saw the unmistakable spinning action of a small bird on the water, a female Red Necked Phalarope, I managed a few seconds of video and a dodgy photo before the bird was chased off, now how do I upload the video onto my blog?

Mmmm no idea so instead here's a dodgy photo, you can view the video on my Facebook page.

Later in the morning I joined one of the twice daily Landrover safaris to parts of Slimbridge that usually only the staff visit, we had great views of Hobbies and  breeding Redshank, plus a female Common Blue butterfly but very few dragonflies as it was cool and windy.

Wednesday 27th May 20156

Today I went out to Lackham College near Chippenham to help one of the North Wiltshire Ringing Group team to ring seven Nuthatch nestlings, it was great to see these birds using a nest box within 30ft of the kitchen window, sorry no photo? I forgot to take one.

I did a spot of "weeding" this afternoon in the gravel court yard area of the garden and I pulled out this..

.

nature is amazing, a Hazel seedling still with the seed nut attached.

Sunday 24th May 2015

CES 3

Today saw the team at the Swindon Lagoons nature reserve for the third of this years Constant Effort Site ringing session.

We arrived on site for 04:30hrs, having set and secured most of the nets on Saturday evening, with clear skies it was already light and the birds were getting into the dawn chorus.

As at the same session last year it was fairly quiet, with 41  new birds ringed another 33 or so "retraps", including a Sedge Warbler which had been ringed by a ringer outside our group.

There were two juvenile Robins ringed they really are stunning birds, the adults we are all familiar with  their red breasts but these youngsters are special

 














It wasn't all birds as we had two moth traps set, quite a collection of commoner species but three Poplar Hawk moths stole the show










The site is pretty good for damselflies and dragonflies, this normally evasive Azure Blue gave itself up easily today, the distinguishing feature of this species is the "U" shaped mark at the top of the abdomen.