March 2015
It is early February as I write this. The first signs of spring are just beginning to show. The evenings are getting significantly lighter; at least I leave work in the light now, even if it is dark on arrival at home. Snowdrops are showing well, and I saw crocuses in bud this evening while walking to my car. I have heard the following birds singing on territory: blue tit, dunnock, song thrush, blackbird, great tit, nuthatch, great-spotted woodpecker, robin, coal tit. I was working in Lake Wood on Saturday, and I was amazed to see and hear a raven fly through the wood kronk kronking as it went. On Sunday I did a bat hibernation survey in Lake Wood and found three Natterer’s bats hibernating in the rocks. In April we will start checking the dormice nest boxes. The dormice are also in hibernation at present, asleep in the leaf litter on the ground in a nice little tennis ball sized nest made of tightly bound honeysuckle bark. Honeysuckle is also called woodbine.
The one thing about February is that you would be hard pressed to find any sort of insect at this time of the year. Considering the vast numbers we see during the summer, this is an amazing contrast, but we seem to hardly notice it. When did you last see an insect? No bees, butterflies, moths, gnats, earwigs or beetles. All are either dead, hibernating or overwintering as eggs, larvae or pupae. Blue tits often glean the trees looking for insect eggs in the winter.
Next time you are near a tree, take a look at the buds. If you find an elder tree, the chances are you will see the first leaves near the bottom of the trunk breaking bud, and even showing some green. It will probably be March before you read this, by then elder will be well in leaf. The cow parsley is growing steadily under the trees, and the hazel has elongated male catkins shedding their pollen and showing their tiny little red female flowers on the buds that will produce the hazel nuts once the pollen has fertilized them. The buds of other trees will be swelling and showing their bud-scale colour, often red or yellow on willow, black on ash, brown and sticky on horse chestnut, pale brown on oak and chestnut brown, pointy and long on hornbeam and even longer on beech. It will be many weeks before these break bud, but look out for the hawthorn leaves, they like elder are among the first!