Nature Notes January 2021

Date Published: 02-02-2021

January proved to be another wet and windy month with a few drier days and several days and nights with low temperatures and ground frosts.

SIGHTINGS
Birds (seen and heard): Common Crows, Magpies, Buzzards, Sparrowhawk, Common Gulls, Black-headed Gulls, Green/Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Tawny Owls, Wood Pigeons, Stock Doves, Nuthatches, Treecreeper, Wrens, Blackcap, Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Robins, Firecrest, Dunnnocks, Stonechats, Siskins, Mallard Ducks, Goldfinches, Chaffinches, Bullfinches, Greenfinches, Coal/Blue/Great/Long-tailed Tits.
Insects: Midges.
Mammals: Grey Squirrels, Foxes, Mole activity.
Plants (in flower/berry): Holly, Ivy, Cotoneaster, Common Gorse.
Fungi: Turkey Tail, Birch Polypore.

A Sparrowhawk was seen on several occasions, hunting along the fence line of Hazelwood and attracted to the garden feeders along Hazelwood Drive.
Two male and one female Blackcaps were seen together along the south woodland path.
Two male and one female Mallard Duck were spotted in a pool in the far North corner of the site.

NATURE FACT
Since the 1960’s, the number of Blackcaps which spend winter in the UK has grown and grown. It’s no longer a rare sight to see them in your garden in the middle of winter. It has been known for a while that Blackcaps coming to the UK tend to have been hatched or bred in Germany.

Recorder: C. Wilcox