Wildlife Blog by Ron Allen – 15th January 2021
First moth of the year and other delights. 15 January 2021
A week of frosty mornings and mainly dull and rainy weather but with some bright spells and producing some firsts of the year.
In the trap was my first 2021 moth, a December Moth (image 1). I had hoped that this might be a first moth for Hampshire but sadly somebody else got in two days earlier. However, it might be the first moth of this species recorded in Hampshire this year.
Other firsts have been two palmate newts appearing in the pond (image 2), primroses and snowdrops in flower (images 3 and 4), wild strawberries and a lesser celandine in flower along Ridge Common Lane, and wild bluebell leaves coming through along North Stroud Lane.
Other delights have been the fox caught on one of our trail cameras one misty morning (image 5) and a buzzard that flew close past me at the very moment I had my camera ready (image 6). A tawny owl has been calling loudly at night telling every other tawny that this is where he lives and hunts; and great tits have been singing their territorial ‘tea-cher tea-cher’ call repeatedly. Rooks are starting to nest in our taller oak trees and I counted over 200 feeding in a grass field to the north of the village.