Wildlife Blog by Ron Allen – 15 March 2023
A weasel, gulls, first frog spawn, newts, snow, a cranefly, some moths and a historic aircraft.
Weasel. 7th March at 9am and 0 deg C and we were delighted that one of our wildlife cameras picked up that most diminutive and perhaps the fiercest mustelid, a Weasel. In all the years we have lived in the village, some 43 years, we have never seen a weasel. Stoats yes, a Polecat Ferret and that large relative the Badger, but never before a weasel. Not the best of pics but a cropped screen shot from video (image 1).
Gulls. We have recently seen huge flocks of hundreds of gulls on our local fields, presumably feeding on earthworms on saturated ground, and looking brilliant as they caught the sun as we walked the local paths on 14 March (image 2). I had assumed that they were all that common Black-headed Gull, but no, there were two other gull species. The black-headed gull was dominant with dark but white tipped wings, a dark chocolate brown head and a partial white ring around the back of the eye (image 3). Looking more closely, some of the gulls had jet black heads, dropping red bills, white plumage and an eye ring broken each side, these were Mediterranean Gulls which from being quite rare in the 1960s have since increased (image 4). More robust gulls in flight were Common Gulls distinguished by yellowish bills and legs (image 5).
Frogs. It has been some years since we have had frog spawn in our pond (image 6) but over the last week we have had nine clumps. This evening we had three paired frogs in their amplexus position (when the males fertilize the females eggs as they are laid) (image 7) plus some other competing males and we could hear at least two male frogs making their intermittent purring croak. Male frogs are olive-coloured with pale bluish-white chins while the female frogs are reddish brown with similar coloured chins. Why our garden frogs have reduced their numbers in recent years is a mystery but it could be an increase in grass snakes which feed on them, or perhaps disease, or even our newts which feed on spawn. Good though to see so many this year.
Newts. We have a thriving population of Palmate Newts in the pond. Males at this time of year have a small crest extending along their tails, gold spotted heads, a short spike at the end of their tails and webbed hind feet (image 8). Females are duller coloured, lacking the male characteristics (image 9).
Snow. On 14 February we awoke to a white covering of snow (image 10) and our Ramsons (wild garlic) found themselves covered over (image 11). Mary will soon be picking the leaves to make wild garlic pesto.
Crane-fly. The light trap caught a rather fine little crane fly. This is Tipula rufina (image 12) with long legs, patterned wings and characteristic black side stripes on each side of the thorax; a relative of the larger daddy-long-legs that appear later in the year.
Moths. Moving into spring we are getting a few different species of moths. Both the tiny March Tubic moth and hardly a cm long (image 13) and the larger Dotted Border moth (image 14) are at the height of their spring flying period. The Early Grey moth is just entering its spring flight period and will be more abundant next month (image 15).
Cellar spider. Also known as the daddy-long-legs spider (image 16) is common in our house and we have seen them catching the much larger and more robust house spider but I have only just found out how they do it. Apparently, they use their long legs to wrap other spiders in silk while keeping them at a distance to avoid being eaten themselves.
Birds of prey and garden birds. Our village Red Kites are still calling and we see Buzzards and hear them mewing from time to time. It is good to see flocks of Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits in our trees and our trail cameras have picked up both Song and Mistle Thrush and Redwing. Song Thrushes are with us all year (although some migrate in from northern Europe) and we have seen a Mistle Thrush. Mistle thrushes have seen a 58% population decrease since the late 1970s and are on the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern. Redwings will soon be leaving us returning to breed probably in Iceland or Scandinavia. Apparently, some redwings reach us from as far as eastern Europe. So good to see both Greenfinch and Goldfinch on the bird feeder. Wrens forage around our house and garden borders and Dunnocks creep out of the shrubs to feed on dropped seed. We have three squabbling territorial Robins that chase not only themselves but also other birds off the bird table.
Aircraft. We get many types of aircraft flying over the village but yesterday this rather strange craft appeared (image 17). Looking it up I found it was a Slingsby T.2 ‘ZA656’ Venture. A historic aircraft built in 1980 as an RAF motor glider trainer and which has now been restored to its original military livery. More information on: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFile%3ASlingsby_T.61_Venture_T.2_%25E2%2580%2598ZA656%25E2%2580%2599_(G-BTWC)_(35533941412).jpg%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1PGdRMOyYHdUOfXtmOMwuiLzQFuq6qwYD0FGbZpfYKJIv061Pa7YKV_gQ&h=AT3wZMPGc6EIGfYrkzRottf2uE_0DTgzgudvvjz4ez5MtMZqTflsm_3doOFsyflz8cb9So4vTt57SHNLt9I23n8E7Fwu8qao8M13_VSI41J4lVrJB5xCRzU9ctOAQgF8gA&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT22Br2O2VyPsS3MAbwRQgcsANabyMCIeIVrufGgM6GYIT3EDn5SmIsI6XOLdQRpAIUu0hi_cMUulpLFTt6c-ILDkCuOcOeR4r69uJEw3NHRExH6CSN0bXmGOASfLiTJNpnvjnhWsojBkeuquF-ZYPBCBR9PV_V9a7RSNw3UTYuXpXSx1DMrmg