First Butterflies of the Year.

Clear skies overnight resulted in a frosty start to the day, but also meant the sun soon warmed things up later, resulting in reports from neighbours of early Brimstone butterflies on the wing. (Last year the first I saw didn't appear until the 11th of March.) None in my garden though, but a stroll down the permissive path to Ashton in the afternoon did yield three Small Tortoishells, all rather tatty having over-wintered by hibernating.

Cuckoos on the move.

BTO have just posted news of their three tagged Cuckoos which have just started to move north from their winter quarters in the rain forests of Central Africa. My Cuckoo, Valentine, is number three in the queue. "A low quality location received from Valentine's tag suggests that he may also be on the move from Angola towards Democratic Republic of Congo. Hopefully he will emerge from the forest canopy soon and his tag will receive enough sunlight to send us a more reliable location." The birds will be feeding and fattening up in preparatiom for their Sahara crossings.

Garden Visitors.

 Welcome visitors in the back garden yesterday were a pair of Bullfinches which arrived after a gap of several years.

Pair of Bullfinches in Elder bush.  Photo. john Elliott

The handsome male is easy to spot, but the not quite so handsome female takes more finding, She is up and well to the left of the male, her black head picking her out. Click to enlarge.

They are still here today, clearly visible as they have an early morning feed.

Pair of Bullfinches.  Photo. John Elliott

Exciting news from Dorset Wildlife Trust, a pair of Beavers have been installed on a West Dorset site. See  www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/BeaverProject for a video of their release.

Welcome sighting.

Returning from my walk up to Ewelease Dairy I was delighted to see, as I passed over the bridge by Shepherd's Cottage, a Water Vole,  feeding on the newly emerging Fool's Water Cress.  I took part last year in a national survey of Water Voles, covering the length of the village, but sadly had to report that there weren't any signs of them.  Their territory can cover a km. or more of river so perhaps it had wandered down from West End where there were Voles reported last year. Good to see one in the village again. No picture I am afraid as it quickly sensed that I was watching it and it slid silently below the water.

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.