A Cool Curlew

With Daylight Saving Time starting to day it is starting to feel a little more like Spring but it will likely be later than we have seen for a few years.

Last Sunday (18th March) we had another significant snowfall here. To get any snow at all here is unusual but I've never known a winter where we've had more than one period of snow.

Goosander in the cold Avon

The snow didn't stop this robin from singing

It looks like the snow has finally gone for good and wildlife can start getting on with Spring. I recently visited Lymington-Keyhaven nature reserve where I got some close views of a few waders. One of these was a turnstone which was failing to live up to its name.

Rather than turning over stones this bird was searching through the seaweed for food. They mostly eat insects, crustaceans and molluscs(1)- it looks like it might have found a small crab in the first photo. Unlike most waders though turnstones will happily scavenge anything they can find and have been recorded feeding on coconuts and even human corpses!

An even more stunning bird was this curlew which was right next to the path. 

You wouldn't think a brown bird could be so beautiful, would you? Curlews can be seen all along the South coast during the winter but this area is the only part where they can be seen all year around, both along the Solent estuary and in the New Forest(2), though their numbers are in decline.

At my work in Bournemouth this week I've seen the car park fox for the first time in a little while. 

Given the size this fox appears to be a vixen. This is the time of year when vixens are pregnant(3) so they are likely to be a little more lethargic than they are at other times. For several days running this vixen was curled up in the corner of the car park in a sunbeam- it's probably the warmest place around at that time of day. 

I was disappointed to see a woman shoo this fox away one morning. I work in a school so I'm assuming she was worried that the fox might be a threat to the children. Foxes attacking humans are minutely small though, especially a small vixen like this one, and the far end of the car park is some distance away from the nearest playground. It's really brightened my morning to see this fox and it's disheartening to think some see it as a vicious monster which it clearly is not.

Over the last few years I've been following the peregrine falcon nest in a clock tower in the Lansdowne area of the town. In 2016 the first egg was laid on the 15th March and in 2017 the 16th March. This year however it was still quite cold by that time and there was no sign any eggs. Finally, the first egg was laid with just minutes left of the 21st of March. 

Clearly the cold winter has meant the falcons delayed laying this year. I kept an eye out on the camera over the next few days and enjoyed some good views of both adults. 

I thought I'd just check on the nest before finishing this blog post and discovered that a second egg was laid at 12:58 this afternoon!

This pair typically have four eggs so I would expect the same again this year. They should start hatching towards the end of April. You can watch all this for yourself on the webcam here.

That's all for today but hopefully I'll be out and about lots over the next few weeks so stay tuned to see what I spot.

1: RSPB- Turnstone

2: RSPB- Curlew

3: Jones, L.(2016) Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love and Loathing in Modern Britain

A Butterfly Bonanza

Last weekend I went to Keyhaven- I often go to the Lymington end of the reserve but this was the first time I started at Keyhaven. It's right on the Solent coast and has lots of marshy areas so is a fantastic place to see waders.

There were a few lapwings around trying to feed. They are fairly dull coloured birds but they have a beautiful sheen to them when viewed from the right angle.

I saw the occasional oystercatcher like this one. It kind of looks like it has caught a crab but I've zoomed into the photo and I think it's probably just a lump of grass or seaweed

There were plenty of birds that you'd expect to see on most stretches of water at this time of year like little egrets and mallards with ducklings. 

Usually in this area you can expect to find a black-tailed godwit or two but I was delighted to spot a whole flock of them. 

I looked up what the collective noun for godwits is and found that there are several- "omniscence", "prayer" and "pantheon". I can't really decide which is the best. 

The path at Keyhaven runs right along the top of the sea wall and I was amazed to see a group of turnstones wandering around on the wall itself, right next to the path. 

Several of them had particularly striking plumage, like this one. 

This individual is in breeding plumage and will return to the greyer colour of the others once the breeding season is over. I wonder if this might be an adult and the greyer birds it's nearly grown-up young. 

After a wet week it's been quite a warm weekend and this combination seemed to be good for the local butterflies. I saw all of these species within about two miles yesterday. 

Small White

Meadow Brown

Peacock

Speckled Wood

Comma

Here's a view of the underside of a comma where you can see the punctuation mark which gives it it's name:

Another excellent view of an insect this week came thanks to this hoverfly, Myathropa florea. 

This is probably a male and you can see it is feasting upon the nectar of this flower. This species of hoverfly look particularly bee-like at first glance and this is to make predators think it is a bee that has a sting when in reality it has no defence at all. 

Red soldier beetles are particularly populous in the local area at the moment with lots of flowers covered in them. 

These beetles should be particularly welcomed by gardeners as the adults eat aphids and the larvae feed on slugs and snails. It's the ideal insect for helping control numbers of garden pests. 

Here's one more insect that is well camouflaged. 

I was at a bit of a loss to what this was as I've never seen anything like it before. With a bit of research I have discovered it's a speckled bush cricket. It's a flightless species of cricket and has black speckles if you look really closely, hence the name. Despite being quite common it's relatively quiet song and it's colouring mean it is really hard to fun. I'm pleased I managed to spot it.

That's all for now but I'll be back as usual next week.