Friday, March 25, 2016

A very Good Friday...

What a lovely days its been. All morning there were clear blue skies and only a little breeze with some warm sunshine. As it was a busy bank holiday and our coast roads are heaving with visitors (cheers Robson) we haven't been far. I resurrected the garden table and chairs after the winter sojourn and did some weeding, planting and pruning while keeping an eye open for garden visitors.

First though, a negative record. There are still no Chiffchaffs singing here. This is getting quite late now as last year we had good numbers from 10th March, but I suppose they will be coming to a willow near us very soon.

The moth trap has been ok this week with double figure catches most nights of the usual orthosias etc, and today we saw our first butterfly of 2016, a Small Tortoiseshell on the windowsill. Unfortunately it was on its toes before the camera could get focussed. The flowering currants in the garden are 'pinking up' nicely and were visited by a few Buff tailed Bumblebees with one Early Bumblebee today.

The area around the nestboxes was particularly busy with pairs of Tree Sparrows squabbling for squatters rights, whilst high overhead, a Skylark sang constantly. If only all spring days could be like this....


House Sparrow at the terrace....the opposite end to last year.

Trying to get both birds in the gap between the twigs was tricky. Tree Sparrows.

Twin-spotted Quaker

Red Chestnut

3 comments:

Warren Baker said...

oooooh, Tree Sparrows, so Jealous!

HowdonBlogger said...

oooooh, Red Chestynuts, so Jealous also

anyone else jealous ?

Stewart said...

Well I'm glad you to are jealous....I'll have to keep it up.