Nature Notes (assorted)

Here we are at the beginning of August. It's raining, which seems to be pretty much the norm for British summer weather. Nothing spectacular is happening, but I've seen lots of little things in the last few days which I don't want to forget...

Yesterday, 2nd August, I saw a moorhen chick which couldn't have been more than a day or two old. This was on the Dragonfly Pond in Seaton Country Park, which is pretty well covered with waterlilies this time of year, making it ideal moorhen territory. I also saw three adults and three full grown juveniles. The little one was being assiduously cared for, but only by one parent. There were five juvenile mallards in a group, as well. No sign of any dragonflies...

At home there are a fair number of baby sparrows sitting on the back fence and begging again. These must be the second or possibly even third brood of the year. There aren't nearly as many of them about as last year, however. I haven't seen more than about 20 at a time, parents and offspring, while on one occasion last year there were more than 100 in a single flock on my tiny patch.

Having devoured and no doubt relished my entire blueberry crop, the marauding gang of mixed tits and finches has now moved on to rowans. There are a dozen rowan trees around and about, all presumably planted when these houses were built. Every year they ripen in the same order over about six weeks - the first tree is feeding the birds now, while on another just along the road the berries haven't even started changing colour. The fact that the birds are now back in a flock shows that the breeding season is over for them, although there are still some fairly immature looking bluetits about.

Out of the window, right now - seven juvenile blackbirds, daddy and baby chaffinch on the fence with the rest of the family in the trees, one baby sparrow who is perching under one of the seed feeders with his mouth open (apparently quite an effective way to get fed) 13 other sparrows, lots of goldfinches in the silver birches, black headed gulls who've gone grey... Just arrived, a greenfinch and two baby bluetits. One of them is picking seeds out of the fat ball and spitting them out, which seems a little ungrateful.

Blackberries are ripe and are already being eaten. Again, like the rowans, there are places where they ripen earlier than others, but we know where to go... There's a pink early-flowering clematis on Henry's fence which is coming into flower again. Out of 12 nasturtium seeds I planted, only two have germinated, but they seem to be taking over the whole garden.

I saw my very first mole yesterday. It was dead, unfortunately, although only recently and seemingly non violently. It just seemed to be asleep at the side of a path through the woods in Seaton Valley - not at all what I would have considered mole country. Good to have the opportunity to study it (but not too closely!), sad that it had to die first.

In the Coombe, this morning, suddenly a fairy ring! Well, a fairy semicircle to one side of the path, to be precise, but the right shape and about four feet across. They looked just like the button mushrooms you see in the supermarket, but I doubt if they are, and I'm not hungry enough to take a chance on it.

I think that's about it for the nature notes, for now.