It is noticeably greener day by day – even in the drizzle!
This is my favourite time of year – the evenings are longer, the birds are singing and you can see the natural world changing before your eyes, particularly as the leaf buds on the tree’s and hedgerows open and unfold. Last weekend there was a general “fuzz” of green about the place, today it is most definitely green and getting greener. And for all that it has been grey and wet all day it has been surprisingly mild, with the thermometer recording a low of 10C and a high of 15C overnight and during the course of the day. Therefore perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to find a grass snake “basking” on top of the dead hedge near Woodland Hide this afternoon – but I was surprised, and therefore didn’t get a picture unfortunately!
Sticking with the green theme momentarily a frosted green was a nice find in the light trap this morning:
Frosted green
It was one of 30 moths in total and 9 species, including this, a herald:
Herald
As the daffodils fade and spring moves on we are moving steadily from the season of yellow flowers to that of purple, with a few early ground ivy flowering and some lovely carpets of dog violets along the woodland edges in places:
Dog violet
Bird wise a ruff that was on Ibsley Water yesterday was absent today, but at least a couple of little gull were present, as were the pair of little ringed plover who (hopefully) are establishing a territory somewhere between the Tern Hide and across to the large peninsula.
There was some excitement over what was perceived to be a drake American wigeon this morning, but by mid-afternoon it was generally accepted that what had initially been thought to have an exciting record was in reality an unusually marked, or hybrid, wigeon.
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 