BY MID APRIL most members of the corvidae and turdidae are near to, or have completed, the raising of first, or only, broods. Rooks are well on course to do so, usually closely followed by the solitary nesting carrion crows. I have watched yet another pair of the latter species dismantle their old nest to rebuild a few hundred yards away!
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• A mistle thrush collects food
for its young. |
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• The orange tip butterfly
appears mid-Spring. |
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• Piggyback to pastures
new: Stewart photographed
these snails earlier in the
season just as they emerged
from hibernation |
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| • A voice of early spring. |
Jackdaws, especially town birds, start the breeding season a little later than their country cousins and, even towards the end of April, can be seen gathering twigs, with much tugging and twisting from leaf unfurling trees.
The early starting mistle thrushes along with many pairs of blackbirds, robins and song thrushes have reared first broods.
I first heard, then saw, newly fledged robins on April 21and this reminded me of an incident the previous week when I thought I had happened upon newly fledged robins being tended to by their parents. However, on this occasion, it was a ritualistic pair bonding act where the *** robin was offering his partner a beakful of insects and she was calling in a thin metallic voice so like the juveniles she will later rear into the world.
Whilst working on my allotment, on April 22, three *** blackbirds - focused on parental duties, therefore pugnacity abandoned - flew down together to peck at the freshly turned soil, capturing worms with their splendid spring-bright bills. There were three blackbirds'
nests nearby then. As yet unpaired *** blackbirds are still doing battle with each other but, in their eagerness, low fast chases result in many striking speeding vehicles, a lamentable end for universally beloved songsters.
Once arrived, swallows waste precious little time in choosing a mate and a nesting site. Then, to bolster the numbers of their kind, tirelessly these gentle aerial wonders race, 'til summer's end.
By the third week of April many beech trees are already cloaked in satin leaves and oak leaves too are unfurling. Hawthorn blossom is showing and bluebells are beginning to open.There are also sweeps of white deadnettle and comfrey along the wayside.
On April 21, at Huntshaw, a roller-pulling tractor sent up a thick cloud of soil particles which drifted across the field over the hedge and across the B3232. On the same day, and for the following two, at Whiddon Valley on the outskirts of Barnstaple, there were intermittent snow-like showers of dandelion pappus.
The following day, April 22, at the same location saw, high above, my first swift of the year, a lone swift, consorting with a small gathering of house martins and swallows.
The early and consistently fine spring has certainly seen this April's delicious advance meshing with the Maytime!
Contact Stewart Beer at: stewart.naturalist@btinternet.com
• Stewart’s anthology An Exaltation of Skylarks, now with four colour plates added, is published by SMH Books ISBN 0 9512619 7 5. It can be ordered from all good bookshops.