Latest stuff week ending 25 March

What a strange week weather wise. As I said last week I cancelled the walk at the Farm on the 18th and rescheduled it for today - the 25th (my birthday - 30th lol). 6 people turned up and we had a great morning. We saw 3 Adders, 5 Slow Worms, 2 Common Lizard, 1 Newt and a Stoat. Birdwise the highlight was 4 Pintail.

I was particularly pleased to catch up with this guy today as when I saw him last Sunday he had ice on him! I have known this chap since he was born - he is 3. It was also really good to find a very young newt under one of my sheets (Palmate); this guy was about 2.5cm long.

There were not that many birds around today but I did manage to bag a decent record shot of one of the 4 singing Skylarks,

 

 

 

The rarest find of the day was the 3 Lobed Water Crowfoot that we have on the Farm. It has just started flowering.

 





 



Love this time of year..full of promise and expectation.

Latest Beasties

Well what a week of weather! I had a walk, at Windmill Farm, planned for Sunday the 18th to look for early migrants and Adders. The weather forecast for the walk was heavy snow - courtesy of the Beast from the East mk2! I therefore cancelled the walk the day before. When I awoke on the Sunday the weather was lovely - not a drop of the white stuff to be seen. I therefore headed off to Windmill where I found 3 Adders and a Slow Worm. 2 of the Adders were new ones - ones I had not seen before. Here is one chap:

And another:

Away from the Farm I popped into Feock Churchyard where I found 8 Bramblings - what a lovely little spot that is.

And on Saturday afternoon I found a female Common Scoter which I initially strung as a Ruddy Duck! Hey ho. lol.

Recent Sightings

Right it is about time that I got into a routine of posting on here! So here goes....Windmill Farm is going from strength to strength in my own biased opinion - if you have not been down since the Windmill viewing platform has been open you should pop in. There is unrivalled views across The Lizard peninsula and beyond. Bird wise it is a bit quiet at the moment - although we currently have 12 Pintail on Ruan Pool - the previous best was 5. It has also been a great winter for Firecrests.







Every year I try and find a January Adder - my earliest record is currently the 16 Feb (2017). This year my earliest was on the 17th Feb - I have known this individual for 3 years and he is always one of the first awake and last to go into hibernation.

It has also been a good year for white winged gulls.  Iceland and Med Gull from Coverack, Glaucous from St Gothian Sands.

Wishing you all a fruitful Spring!