Spring has sprung!

Awakening on the last day of 2020 my first view of the outside world was of the Rooks ariving from their night roost at Bradford Peverell and inspecting their nests in the Horse Chestnut tree outside my bedroom window, tugging at sticks and tucking them back into the structure. They do this every year only to be lost from view as the sticky buds break into leaf and hide the more interesting activities as they start  rearing families.

Rooks inspecting nests.  Phto. John Elliott.

 

Later in the day a walk up to West End yielded a surprise in the form of several blooms of Butterbur on the roadside below the mill leat. which supplies the moisture they love.

Butterbur at West End.  Photo. John Elliott.

 

 

According to my admittedly old Flora, the Butterbur flowers in months 3,4 and 5. In recent years it has flowered much earlier than this but I have never seen it before the old year is out until now. The flowers appear before the leaves and provide early food for such insects as are about. In past years the large leaves served to wrap butter, hence the name, keeping it cool by  evaporation.

 

Another Garden Rarity.

 Until the late 80s Little Egrets were regarded as 'A very rare passage migrant'. in Dorset, occuring in low single figures. My son, John, saw one in Poole Harbour then and had to  submit a full description to the British Birds Rarities Committe for scruteny before it was admitted to the national records. Numbers started to increase in the nineties; in 1999 a total of 226 were seen in the main coastal sites and there has been a steady increase since.  The birds are now frequent visitors to the village and a pair have often roosted in the Manor House trees adjacent to the road, and foraged up and down the stream. It came as a big surprise though to see, on Christmas Day morning, one standing in my front garden. A great garden tick and a new one for my weekly Garden Birds website entry.

 Little Egret in Tregerrick Garden. Photo. John Elliott  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a further surprise on Boxing Day morning was a Grey Wagtail in the back garden feeding on the bird table. The bird was very active, they don't stand around like the Egrets, and I didn't manage to get a photo.

Further to my remarks on the Moorhen below,  we now have these three birds which normally live and feed quite happily by the stream, coming into our gardens.  This usually  only occurs in very cold, freezing conditions, which recent weather has not been, and food is then difficult to find. I fear something has gone seriously wrong with the South Winterborne to drive these birds away.

Garden Rarity.

Some birds, such as the House Sparrow and Robin,  happily share our gardens with us all year round, my robin is even tame enough to eat out of my hand. Others will only come into the gardens when food supplies in the wider countryside are becoming scarce. Scandinavian visitors such as  Fieldfares and Redwings only venture into gardens in the most severe weather. Red Legged Partridges from the local shoot are only occasional visitors to Martinstown gardens, while some species virtually never venture into them willingly. I was surprised therefore to see a juvenile Moorhen, a species that doesn't normally stray far from the stream, picking up dropped seed from the bird table and then flying up onto the table to feed. It was very nervous however and disappeared when I tried to get a photo, so I was very pleased a few days later when a photo appeared on the Dorset Bird Club web site  taken by my neighbour, Nick. He tells me it has been with him about a week, it must like his birdseed better than mine.

Moorhen.          Photo:  Nick Pridle.

 The stream is silting up very badly at the moment, not at all surprising since the absence of plants, particularly the wavy green strands of  Water Crowfoot, makes the flow very smooth and not turbulent enough to keep the silt suspended. The silt is perhaps covering up food supplies that the moorhem might otherwise enjoy. Certainly the Little Egret I saw wading along a few days ago didn't seem to be finding much.

Winter flowers

 An early morning ground frost covering house and car roofs heralded the coming of winter and the long sleep of most of our flowering plants. But not all, as a walk up the bridleway to Ewelease Dairy revealed. Next year's Cow Parsley, already six inches high ( or 15.24cms. if you insist) above the ground layer of Ivy and Ground Ivy, as is also next year's crop of Nettles, one of nature's great food plants, the main or sole food plant for around seventy moths and butterflies. Though most of the Ivy is now covered in berries a few flowers remain to provide late food for insect like bees, wasps and hover flies.

Ivy is not the only plant to be still in late flower on the roadside bank up to the farm. A small       patch of Hedge Mustard has come into bloom quite recently.

Hedge Mustard.

A few flowers of Red Campion remain, as also do Herb Bennet and White Dead Nettle.

Hawkweed.

Hawkweed looks far from over in several places, A few Dandelions and Buttercups are still showing, together with one of the Hawkbit species and Yarrow, and right at the top of the hill a couple of specimens of that much maligned plant, Ragwort.

Ragwort.

Yarrow.

         

                                         

News of Cuckoo Valentine.

An update from BTO on the migratory travels of my Cuckoo Valentine arrived in my inbox today .

Our Cuckoos have now reached their wintering areas. It is amazing to see that having been tagged within a stone's throw of each other, Norfolk Cuckoo Valentine and Suffolk Cuckoo PJ were separated by 3,780km (2,349 miles) in August but are now again within 15km (9.3 miles) of each other in northern Angola.  They are approximately 70 km (43 miles) north east of the capital Luanda. PJ and Valentine have wintered in this area in previous years and if conditions are good, they may well stay in this area untill late February/early March.

Hedgehog Survey.

 I recently took part in Dorset Wildlife Trust's survey of Hedgehogs in Dorset. Sadly I had to report that I had seen none in Martinstown.  For most of my 46 years in the village hedgehogs have been nightly visitors to my garden, together with Badgers and Foxes. Experiences ranged from stepping on a hedgehog in the dark, I am not sure who was most alarmed, me or the hedgehog ( niether of us suffered any serious harm), to getting up in the middle of the night to investigate what sounded like a baby crying in the front garden. This turned out to be due to a tightly rolled hedgehog which a badger was trying to open up and make a meal of.The badger was persuaded to leave through the front gate and the hedgehog taken to the back garden where it scampered off into the shelter of the hedge.Alas these nightly visits seem to have ceased in the last four or five years.

However, of the 4000 responents to the survey 80% had seen a badger.  Full results of the survey are at:-

dorsetwildlifetrust.typeform.com/report/ogep1RZr/yswQfsOA2Zh2LbJJ

and a leaflet on helping to preserve the hedghog population is at:-

www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/download-your-hedgehog-guide-0?utm_source=EmailHHGuide91120&utm_medium=EmailHHGuide91120&utm_campaign=EmailHHGuide91120&utm_term=EmailHHGuide91120&utm_content=EmailHHGuide91120

 I saw a car flattend hedgehog at the western end of the village a few days ago so we do still have a few around.

 

Update on Valentine.

 The latest bulletin from the BTO on migrant Cuckoos has arrived with news of the one I sponsor, Valentine.

Since our last update our Cuckoos have been making steady progress towards their wintering grounds. Valentine is leading the way, having passed through Cameroon, Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo, he is now in northern Angola. He is now only approximately 130 km (80 miles) north of his wintering location in 2019. Last year he arrived here on December 5 so he is a little ahead of schedule this year. If conditions are good, he may well stay in this area until late February/early March. 

Nearer home the Horse Chestnut outside my bedroom window has produced a record crop, the best in the last forty years, despite the extensive damage to the foliage from the Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner and a fungus infection.