This blog mainly reflects the pleasure of being interested in nature, but when you care about something then you feel it when it’s damaged. This spring has been the worst I can remember.
I went for a six mile walk around the village last week, in
good weather, and I managed a total of two bumblebees and two hoverflies. Bird
numbers are hugely down too with hardly any swifts and very low numbers of
hirundines (I have so far only found a single House Martin nest!). Resident
birds too don’t seem to be faring well with, for example, only three singing
Corn Buntings (against a typical count of 7-8)…
It’s an intensively farmed area so I don’t expect Amazonian levels of biodiversity but genuinely in 30 years of nature watching in the parish I have never known it like this. The optimistic half of me says it might just be a blip because of poor early spring weather etc. but the pessimistic (realistic?) side says this is the inevitable outcome of a constant year on year decline, particularly in insect numbers.
Anyway, on to more positive things because despite it all I
did have a couple of additions to my village list. Pick of these was this
superb Broad-bodied Chaser…
This is a species that has been increasing significantly in
the north and there have been a couple of recent records in the parish but this
was my first village sighting.
The other was a chance find on the garden wall, Small Dusty
Wave…
These following three are relatively common species but I haven’t consciously recorded them (or at least photographed them) before…
Splayed deerfly – a fearsome looking beast!
Bumblebee hoverfly
Narcissus Bulb Fly
And talking of keeping positive, it’s important to remember
there are some good news stories like the resurgence of the Common Buzzard. I can
still remember the buzz of seeing my first village flyover and now there are
between 5 and 6 territories in the parish. I photographed this one near the
river last week…
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