Wild March

I thought it might be of interest to do a diary-like summary of each month. I’ll highlight things I’ve blogged about, wildlife sightings I haven’t and general comments on the local weather.

12th March: On a visit to Sandbanks in Poole I spotted a turnstone in its Winter plumage:

13th March: I visited the Lymington-Keyhaven Nature Reserve which I then blogged about.

14th March: On my way home from work I spotted my first butterfly of the Spring, a peacock. This was in a fairly urban area but the nearby Blashford Lakes nature reserve reported seeing a few different species this week.

17th March: In the early hours of the morning, at 3:16AM, a meteor shot across the sky. I was sadly fast asleep at the time but the media seems to suggest that here in Ringwood was one of the best places to see it. This image comes from Richard Bassom via the BBC News site and was taken here in Ringwood!

I have seen the car park fox at work over the last few mornings. It only seems to be there when the sun is shining, presumably warming up before going to sleep for the day. Fortunately the car park is fairly quiet when I arrive around 8:30AM and the fox pays little attention to me. My fingers are crossed that I might spot some cubs at some point later in the season.

Today is also the equilux, the day where we have as much daylight as we do darkness. From here on in the days start becoming longer than the nights.

19th March: I’ve started to notice lots of blossom on the local trees which shows that Spring is well and truly starting:

20th March: It’s the first day of Spring! And it’s a grey miserable day sadly. So far though March has been largely sunny and we have very little rainfall.

24th March: A week of fairly warm weather which has seen a few more butterflies emerge. I’ve also noticed a few birds looking like they might be gathering nesting materials, especially the blackbirds near my house. I imagine it won’t be all that long now before we start seeing the first young birds.

The car park fox has been there most mornings this week, even when it hasn’t been as sunny, and one morning there was a second fox sat next to it, though this one ran away before I could get a good look at it.

25th March: I took a short walk along the Castleman Trailway which I then blogged about.

29th March: Storm Katie hit us yesterday. There were very strong winds which have caused a fair bit of damage and over an inch and a half of rain which is quite a lot given how saturated the land already is. I drove past a few local rivers today and saw that they had once again flooded well above their banks. This sort of weather might hold back Spring for some wildlife although I suspect it will be a good year for waders and other wildlife that like the flood waters.

30th March: Today it was revealed that there are pine martens in the New Forest, which I blogged about here.

31st March: The RSPB shared the results to this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch and I wrote a blog post comparing my results with the national ones.

That’s all for March! April is a great month for wildlife so I hope to have some interesting things for you so watch this space.