Promising start to June

With the recent sunny spells which everyone has been hoping for, I took advantage of the rays and Mum's range of garden flowers to practice some up close and personal photos! I'm very lucky to firstly have a lovely nature friendly garden and secondly that my mum is a great gardener!! She has made sure we have a variety of plants which bees, hoverflies and other bugs love!! The set of photos on this post were taken over the last couple of days.

4th June

Allium

Beautiful colours of the fresh allium

Forget-me-not

Volucella bombylans - a fairly large hoverfly that is a bumble bee mimic

Strawberry plant flower

I have followed a similar theme in my last few posts, that we should appreciate the wonderful areas that surround us and that many of us are lucky to live in the countryside where birds, insects and other creatures are plentiful.

This is reiterated to me every time I go for a walk with the dog. Whitethroats on telephone wires, foxes skulking in the orchards, great spotted woodpeckers raising their chicks, calling to tem constantly. This GSW nest is the second we know of, the other is down in the woodland area in the other direction from my house (features later on in this post..). All of this a 10 minute walk from my house. How lucky am I :) Sometimes it is nice to just take in all these incredible moments without taking photos. But some events are just too good that I want a digital image as well as a picture in my head, because one day my memory may not be as clear as it is currently!

Hawthorn blossom

Parent woodpecker by the nest hole

Chick popping its head out!

How happy does he look :)

Floating head!!

5th June

More sun meant more photo opportunities, because flowers just look so much more colourful and vibrant when they are highlighted by sunshine! The allium's flowers are gradually opening and the various insects are using the leaves as sun beds. The housemartins are keeping me entertained as they swoop over my head and talk to each other in their bubbly tones. I just LOVE watching them and it fills me with happiness when I hear the swifts screaming as they dart after each other. It is these things which I can't imagine summer without. 

I have also been keeping a close eye on the nest box which the blue tits have been using and on Tuesday I predicted that the chicks would fledge soon. They proved me right and around lunch time I noticed a small fluffy grumpy looking blue tit chick perched on the flowering bush near the nest box. It was making lots of noise, obviously hungry and calling to mum or dad. The parent tried many different positions feeding it's bubba!!

Alium - the individual flower heads (florets?) had started opening

Playing with log and toy at the same time - multitasking pup!

Helophilus pendulus

Housemartin pair adding to their nest. Why they don't use the box we put up I don't know!!

Blue tit fledgling

Parent and baby blue tits

How many different angles can this parent be in to feed its chick?!

Fluffed up, this chick looks bigger than its parent!

Grumpy chick!

6th June

The allium is a member of the onion family and is actually latin for garlic. The whole plant is a complex cluster of flowers which I think can be referred to as an inflorescence. The common point at the centre gives rise to a number of pedicels (the stalks of each floret) and the stem which supports the whole inflorescence is termed peduncle. I have never been very good at botany so if I have got any terms wrong I do apologise!

The last couple of walks down at the strawberry fields 5 minutes from my house, I have been surrounded by housemartins who go there to pick up muds to build or patch up their nests. They literally come within a couple of metres from me which is magical!! 5, 6, 7 of them all landed in the nearly dried up muddy puddle, but only for a brief moment. The wind made them flutter around and showed how spectacularly they utilise each of their feathers in order to fly in the direction they wanted to. A lone swallow passed through also.

Housemartins

Fly-by swallow

Buttercup

Correction: Large white (Thank you Marianne!)

 I walked along down by the reed filled ditch and listened as at least 4 pairs of reed warblers chattered away in harmony with the numerous marsh frogs. There were a good number of freshly emerged damselflies and I saw quite a few butterflies around.  

Colourful meadow area

Happy Bracken amongst the buttercups

Correction: Azure damselfly (Thanks again to Marianne!)

Azure damselfly

I didn't think this walk could get much better, only to walk past the wooded area and hear the great spotted woodpecker chicks calling loudly. They had fledged!! Through the leafy trees I spotted one which after a few minutes was joined by a parent. I stayed to watch and get a couple of photos then headed off so I didn't scare either parent away. Whilst I watched them, I also heard chiff chaffs, a cuckoo, the many reed warblers and when I glanced across the meadow shown above, I was please to see a wonderful marsh harrier.

Parent and fledgling great spotted woodpeckers

 I was greeted by more housemartins when I reached the puddles on the way home and managed a couple more pleasing photos.

Housemartin off to add to its fantastic nest!

 The last few days have really enforced how in awe of nature and birds I am. I love the area I live in!

Sorry for such a long post! Please do look back soon if I haven't bored you too much with my ramblings! :)

Delightful Sunday in April

The morning started off with quite a bit of cloud around and the odd drop of rain, however we decided to explore the paths around Victory Wood in Dargate. This is a new plantation which has been created with the hope of linking two existing woods together (Blean and Ellenden). We were serenaded by skylarks for the entire duration of our walk, which was absolutely delightful! I don't think I have ever seen and heard so many before!

We didn't go for this walk specifically to see any particular bird, but I always think this is best because then we never go home disappointed! In fact we went home exceptionally happy today!

In the first few minutes of our walk we watched a flock of small finch like birds, unfortunately it was windy and a bit rainy so neither myself nor my mum got a decent look at them. I did get 2 photos of a bird in this flock but they are heavily cropped so aren't very sharp! I think they were linnets but not sure. If anyone reading this has any better idea, please do comment!! :)

Linnet???

Bracken was getting absolutely filthy and the rain was still spitting at us, which wasn't very kind of it! We took cover in the woods where it looked very autumnal! Bracken raced around with sticks and I found some moss to take a photo of!

We left the woods and walked across the top of the ridge where we were greeted by many more skylarks! I tried to get a decent photo, but they are particularly difficult to capture, in my opinion! Below are a couple of my attempts!

These don't even look like birds! But I am pretty sure they are skylarks!!

Skylark

The trees in the plantation are still pretty twig-like. It will be lovely to see them grow into a beautiful woodland! There was also lots of pussy willow to be seen, and many of the furry catkins were coming into flower.

I only realised this was some sort of fly when I was cropping this photo! Not sure how I didn't notice it before!

This walk also brought us our first 2 swallows of the year! I always used to say that swallows were my favourite bird, but now I find it very difficult to choose a favourite. I now take the view that each and every bird has beautiful qualities. However I will never ever get bored of watching these fantastic creatures!

Beautiful swallows

After about 1 and a half hours we had done a nice circular route and had reached the link sculpture where eventually the 2 original woods will meet. We had earned spectacular views from the top!

Myself and Bracken

On our way back down I thought I heard a chiffchaff amongst the overwhelming skylark song. We made our way towards the brambles and shrubs and managed to locate the little brown bird! This walk was turning into one filled with spring migrants!

Chiffchaff

Our next birdy spot was a kestrel which landed on a fence post and had a nice preen! It was fairly distant so the photos weren't great. I'll include them anyway :)

We then noticed what at first I thought was a blackbird. It was calling slightly differently. I joked with my mum, "Imagine if it was a ring ouzel!" It flew from the distant tree onto a fence post a bit nearer to us. Immediately we noticed a white bib!! I edged a bit nearer to try and get a photo that I could look back at when we got home, just to make sure! A RING OUZEL!! We love seeing new birds which we don't expect to see! That feeling will NEVER grow old! :)

Ring ouzel on the middle post

Ring ouzel (heavily cropped) showing distinctive white bib

This cropped photo shows the white streak down its wing and part of its white bib

This was most definitely the highlight of my day! It was a shame I couldn't get closer before it flew away and that the sun wasn't shining. Sod's law that as soon as we got in the car, the sun came out and the clouds cleared! We watched another 2 swallows dancing in the sunshine before we headed off!

We got home and had some lunch. Pup was knackered and lay in the sun on the patio. My camellia (which two of my friends bought me for my birthday last year) is flowering and so I took the opportunity, while it was sunny, to photograph it.

A blue tit was chirping in a nearby tree as was this rather demonic looking goldfinch!!

How blue is that sky?!

I then said to my mum: "Wouldn't it be lovely if a house martin flew over right now" and about 5 minutes later when we were taking the washing in, what did we spot? Only a blooming house martin! Could this day get any more perfect!! :)

So to wrap things up, today has been a wonderful one! Not only the hottest day of the year so far, but also brought spring migrants and a "lifer".

I hope everyone who reads this also had a lovely day!!