A very quiet week for birds, it feels as though migration is
over before it has really got started and some species numbers, such as
Swallows and both martins, still seem particularly low (although I did have a
dozen House Martins feeding and gathering mud from the muck heap down School
Lane). The only records of note were both Tracey and Chris having calling
Cuckoos this week. Tracey heard hers in the bottom fields at Ainderby and Chris
in Thrintoft. The latter bird was still calling today. This shouldn’t really be
news but it is a very long time since we had them regularly in the parish.
As I don’t have a picture of these birds then Cuckoo Flower
will have to substitute…
Incidentally this is the main food plant of the Orange Tip
butterfly and if you look very closely on the flower stems you can sometimes find
their tiny bright orange eggs.
My very slow progress on botany continues. As a whole the
parish, with its intensive agriculture, has a really poor flora but even here
you can find tiny pockets so over the
last few days I have added a handful of (common!) species to the parish list
including:
Winter Bittercress…
Bird’s Foot Trefoil...
Common Fumitory…
And Dove’s Foot Cranesbill…
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