This is the day when, by tradition, the birds begin their courtship rituals.  Some have already started – magpies, blackbirds, robins, the various tits and the greater spotted woodpecker, but others may be put off as this Valentine’s day is dull, damp, murky and cold!

A few primroses are out but most are in tight bud.  They are much later than last year.  Why?  Is it this year’s colder weather or something that occurred last year?

One of our young oak trees planted about 5 years ago has loads of oak apples on it.

 These are brown, round and hard, about 2 cm in diameter with a tell-tale small hole in the bottom through which the parasitic oak apple gall wasp (biorhiza pallida) escapes.  The wasp larvae burrow into the leaf buds and live and feed there until July.  The tree reacts by producing a sort of hard callous called a gall.

February 24th....Last year was definitely the year of the primrose and this year is the turn of the snowdrop.  The banks along Whatley Lane, parts of Fosse Way and Crewkerne Hill are alight with them. 

I noticed a song thrush in our garden.  So?? I hear you ask?  Well, song thrushes are rare in our garden at the top of High Street as also are house sparrows and starlings – once the commonest birds.  Now all these birds are on red alert, sparrows having declined between 50% and 60% in the last 20 years and thrushes and starlings by even more.  Interestingly, I notice that they are much more numerous towards the bottom of Fore Street.  Perhaps there are better nesting places there.

The blackbirds have started to pour out their lovely melodious song at dusk.  I was serenaded all the way up Fore Street this evening.

The snowdrops are beginning to fade showing their fat, green seedcases.

There are purple violets on the banks of Colham Lane and some along Ebben Lane and white ones along Leigh Lane.

Dog’s Mercury is abundant.  Apparently it has this name because of its resemblance to Chenopodium bonus-henricus (Good King Henry), also known simply as Mercury and is an edible herb. ‘Dog’ in Dog’s Mercury means bad, (dog owners please don’t take this personally!) but beware – it is highly poisonous!

March 19th....

An interesting article in the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) magazine, by Tim Birkhead which I will share with you. It appeared in the Spring 2017 issue. Read on!

There are huge variations in the mating habits and hence the sexual organ size of different species of birds.

For example, guillemots are monogamous and so are bullfinches whereas female dunnocks are extremely promiscuous and copulate readily with many different males.  As a result the males have to compete fiercely with each other and have extremely large testes making up 3.4% of their body mass whereas male bullfinches have tiny testes making up only 0.37% of body mass.  The sperm of the dunnock is smooth and streamlined (think of an E-type jag) whereas the sperm of bullfinches is more like a Morris Minor!

March 26th...

Wayford Woods are full of spring flowers.  One of these is Lysichitum americanum, a very invasive, non-native relative of the more delicate Arum Maculatum or Lords and Ladies.  This plant has lots of other common names:  cuckoo pint, jack in the pulpit, cows and bulls, and naked girls to name but a few.  These gender-related names refer to the plant’s likeness to male and female genitalia simulating copulation. They attract small insects with their rather unpleasant (to us) smell and the insects are trapped in the lower section where they feed on the nectar and in return pollinate the flower.  They are then released.

This must be one of the coldest, driest Aprils on record.

The wild cherry blossom looks magnificent.

The blackthorn blossom is still out – much later this year than last.

The hawthorn blossom is just beginning to show

The bluebells are wonderful and also the cow parsley and wild garlic (ramsons).  There is a wonderful wood full of ramsons between Broadwindsor and Beaminster and another near Knowle St Giles.  There are a few in Geoff Peacock’s wood but I haven’t seen many others around Winsham.

Our field is full of dandelion clocks

There are slow worms on top of our compost heap keeping  warm and safe under an old carpet.  Unlike snakes they give birth to live young.

Praise should go to Richard Rose for establishing and tending a wild flower area in St Stephens churchyard. At least one orchid appeared this year and he successfully got Yellow Rattle to germinate.  This is a very useful semi-parasitic meadow flower which suppresses the growth of coarse grasses and allows more slender plants to thrive. 

The council should be praised for not cutting the roadside verges before the wild flowers have had a chance to seed.  Of course, this may have more to do with shortage of money than good environmental credentials!

July 29th...

This was the day we opened our garden for Somerset Wildlife Trust, having invited Mark Fletcher, a moth expert from Yeovil, to set up a moth trap the night before.  He had been twice before in May and June to do trial runs and had caught some stunning moths.  However, typically, after 2 weeks of unbroken sunshine, the weather broke yesterday and became cool, damp and very windy, and, guess what?  Moths don’t like flying about in wind!  Undaunted, we put the traps in sheltered places and in the end he managed to capture some beauties.  Here are a few from June and July:

Martin and Fiona kindly agreed to open their woodland to our visitors and it was fascinating.  They have a wonderful collection of trees and a very large pond.  Also there are quirky surprises around every corner.

Tree Man

Bracket Fungus