Week 12* brought lighter evenings and a lot of warm weather. It definitely felt more like Spring and I loved it!
Highlights include:
🦋 Watching the butterflies enjoying the warm weather
🐥 Recapping my bird song lessons
🌸 Working out how to be a more eco-friendly gardener
🐊 Learning more about crocodiles and aestivation
Thank you for reading 😊
Monday 29th March 2021
I learnt a new word today. Aestivation. I was reading a chapter out of my book this morning and saw the word – bogong moths apparently ‘sit out the summer in a dormant condition known as aestivation: the summer equivalent of hibernation’ (D. Barrie, Incredible Journeys). After a quick google, I found this very helpful article that explained more. Aestivation is when animals in hot climates hibernate to avoid extreme heat or drought. Some crocodiles do this. Mugger crocodiles, for example, sometimes bury themselves, bringing their heart rate and breathing down in order to wait out the heat (as seen in this video). Who knew!
Tuesday 30th March 2021
What a scorcher! I saw over the weekend that it was due to be a hot one today but it really was something else! Even when I went for a walk later on, it was still very toasty. My favourite wildlife spots on this walk were the butterflies – I saw a small tortoiseshell and a peacock butterfly. I also loved that loads of leaves on many of the trees had burst from their buds. I just hope ‘mother nature’ is kind and doesn’t suddenly freeze them all… I’m praying!
Wednesday 31st March 2021
About a year ago – when I first started this blog – I wrote quite a bit about wild onion. It was just ev-ery-where in the garden and my quest was to dig it all up. In truth, my battle with the wild onion became quite synonymous with ‘Lockdown 1’ so it’s quite fitting that this nemesis has reared its ugly head again. I’m pleased to say that our efforts paid off to some extent. The wild onion is not as prolific in the flower beds as last year. But, sadly, it has dominated a section of the lawn. So, this evening, after work, in the glorious unseasonable warmth, I got the trowel out, put on the gardening gloves and dug up as much as I could. Cats, it turns out, are a bit of a pain when you’re pulling up wild onion – that’s one lesson I hadn’t already learnt a year ago!
Thursday 1st April 2021
I am craving some new Lucy Lapwing bird song lessons at the moment. I’ve watched them all now and I’ve realised I’m 100% bird nerd. So, while I wait for the next lesson, I decided today to recap the ones I’ve listened to so far:
1. Blackbird – sounds like an old man whistling at the bottom of the garden; lots of pauses
2. Robin – sounds like a child trying to copy a blackbird song
3. Wren – very loud; part of the song sounds like a ‘rattle’ or like the wren is being wound up like a toy and then let go
4. Song thrush – doesn’t know what it wants to sing; sounds similar to a blackbird at first; repeats the same type of sound 3-4 times, pauses and then moves on to another sound
5. Mistle thrush – sounds similar to a blackbird and song thrush but doesn’t pause as much; goes through the sounds quicker and is less happy about it
6. Chaffinch – change in notes during part of the song sounds like it’s moving down like a waterfall; this section of the song ends with a short ‘pthtttt’ noise (like it’s blowing a raspberry)
7. Great tit – difficult to identify; massive variety of noises and songs; one staple song (that’s easy to remember) sounds like ‘tea-cher tea-cher tea-cher’
8. Wood pigeon – typical song has 5 ‘syllables’; sounds like ‘wood-pig-eon-PIG-EON’
9. Collared dove – unlike wood pigeon, typical song has 3 ‘syllables’; sounds like ‘coll-ared-dove, coll-ared-dove’
All of them need some practice but I’m definitely making progress!
Friday 2nd April 2021
I learnt a bit about peat and gardening this morning. There was a BBC News article first thing that caught my eye – it said that only a tiny number of garden centres have made progress towards being peat-free. I have to confess, I had absolutely no idea that peat was so relied upon in the gardening world. As peat bogs are such valuable environments (from both a wildlife perspective and a carbon-sink-perspective) that can’t easily be restored, I kind of assumed that they’d be well protected but it turns out peat is in everything when it comes to gardening. After a good ol’ search on the internet, I managed to find some peat-free compost for my upcoming gardening antics but I have really struggled to find actual plants that haven’t been grown in peat compost. Honestly, I am shocked by this.
Saturday 3rd April 2021
I saw a friend for the first time in months today and it was my absolute pleasure to take him on one of my local walks around Shipston. He was keen to know what on earth a chiffchaff sounds like and they offered a real t-reat today – we heard loads of them. Another treat was the cormorant that flew around and landed in a tree by the river too. It was perfectly silhouetted against the sky while it had a little chill.
Sunday 4th April 2021
It was another lovely day today and I’m pleased to say that I don’t think ‘mother nature’ has destroyed the wildlife that’s been enjoying the warm weather just yet. My partner and I went for a walk in the sunshine and spotted a bird of prey on the way back that was circling overhead. It looked too small for a buzzard so I had a little look at this article about birds of prey. After reading this, I’m wondering if what we saw was a sparrowhawk… but it might have been a kestrel… I need to get better at this!
*For anyone new to my blog, let me explain a bit more about what these posts are about. Every week I share a summary of my daily ‘acts of wildness’. This wildlife challenge was inspired by ’30 Days Wild’ and ’12 Days Wild’ from The Wildlife Trusts. The ‘356’ isn’t a typo – typically, I only thought about doing this after 2021 had already started so I won’t be able to do a full year this time. Next year will be different though! Thank you and I hope you’ve enjoyed the post!
Ramblings of a (very!) amateur artist 