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April wildlife in our Shropshire garden |
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April weather continued the
rather dismal trend so far this year
cold, wet and windy! Still
it did feel more spring-like as flowers began to bloom and birds were
singing from the hedges, treetops and sky above. Yellowhammers,
chaffinches, skylarks, blackbirds and thrushes made up the dawn chorus
with wood pigeons cooing and calls from tits as well. Quite noisy
here first thing in the morning! Both woodpeckers and
nuthatches were calling from the wood next door as well and at last, at
the end of the month, some summer migrants arrived chiffchaff, willow
warbler and whitethroat, all singing around the garden. On the 26th
one of our swallows arrived my yearly wildlife highlight and he
checked out last years nest site in the front porch, just outside my
office window. Another year of great wildlife watching ahead!
Its nice to think that all that effort that was put into building the nest
in the first place was worth while with just a little repair with mud
from the edges of our new pond, the nest was ready and he began singing
and twittering from the porch to encourage his mate. She arrived at
the very end of the month. April was a good month for butterflies at last with a few small tortoiseshells, peacocks and on the 27th the first of the orange tips in the garden. Newts, both common and great crested were seen in abundance in the shallow water of the new pond. I am assuming that they over winter in the woodland next door (which is not managed and therefore full of dead wood) and can easily find our pond which is within a few meters of the pond edge. So with our bluebells,
honesty, dandelions, lungwort and apple trees in flower to feed the bees
and summer migrant birds and some butterflies around, all we need now is
some warm weather in May to make spring a really pleasant experience!
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Over time we hope to monitor as much of the wildlife here as we can. New records will be added to this site as we identify what's here in the garden. To see what we have seen so far, click here. |
© Text and photographs Jenny Steel 2008