Today has been a day of pleasant nature surprises. It has been one where mostly nature has come to me. This morning I heard that recognisable screaming of swifts above my head and counted around 15. Great to see them back again. In the same garden there were some very large earthworms of a different hue to the normal kind and they were very firm.
I sat down in a sunny wooded spot to have a break from my work in the Forest School area and a hoverfly kept landing on me. I noticed a mini wing like a bird’s bastard wing at the base of the main left wing. Was it a break? A separate section of the main wing or an individual extra one? I need to find out! (Not really noticeable on the photo’s)
Debbie got excited whilst she was cleaning and called all of us over. In the double glazing door frame of the conservatory there was what looked like a newly emerged large white and the remains of the chrysalis that it came from. I went to move it to discover that it was a large white as due to its very green undersides it completely threw me in my identification!
In the evening I purposefully went on to Whitmoor Common to practise some more with my bat detector and listen to the soundscape. I wasn’t disappointed by the latter! Most of the birds encountered were actually through sound. Great to hear and see a Dartford Warbler next to a path that I don’t remember walking down which cuts diagonally across the common – but requires wellies! It was low down in some gorse at first difficult to locate. There were a handful of Song Thrush singing as well which threw out some sounds to put me off there scent! The Cuckoo was clearer this evening. The other evening I wasn’t sure I had heard it but last night was better. My favourite the Nightjar is back and caught me by kee-wicking and later churring, I did manage to see it albeit in the distance.
Here’s the list:
Blackcap
Meadow Pipit
Chiffchaff
Cuckoo
Whitethroat
Blue Tit
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Green Woodpecker
Wood Pigeon
Robin
Song Thrush
Swallow
Mallard
Crow
Pheasant
Heron
Long Tailed Tit
Dartford Warbler
Coot
Blackbird
Woodcock
Nightjar
I did see a bat first located by using my detector. It was seen at the same place I heard and saw the one the previous evening. Flying quite low over the trees and at one point coming very close again.
On the way home a fox ran from near our house and dived into the front garden of one of the houses a few doors down. I reversed into the driving watching out for it. It came out again and crossed the road behind another vehicle and then turned and walked up the middle of the road for a bit and then on to the pavement where I lost it to cars which obscured it from view.
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On Tuesday at Forest School one of the nursery children found an insect which looked like a wasp. I’d never seen one before. We tried to identify it from the pictures in the i.d. guides that we have but that wasn’t too successful. One of the pictures showed a digger wasp which was the closest to the actual specimen.
