Local Wildlife

This Months Wildlife Article

Fran tells us ........

As we were away on a Caribbean Cruise for the first couple of weeks in January, celebrating our Golden Wedding, we have not much local news to report. We did however see 50 species of birds whilst on the islands, from the Magnificent Frigate bird with a six feet wing span to the tiny Humming Birds just weighing a few grams and the sunshine was glorious. We have seen 516 different species world-wide during our travels and 307 different species in the U.K. during our bird watching trips over many years, so far this year we have only seen just over 30 different species to go on our yearly list.

Back in Cornwall once more we were extremely pleased to see a couple of Mute Swans on the canal and hope they will stay and make their home with us. I was pleased to see the birds back in the garden again once I refilled the feeders with sunflower hearts, and especially so to see that we have a male Bullfinch coming regularly to feed, as well as the many Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Siskins, Blue tits, Great tits, Coal tits, Sparrows, Robins and the Blackbird picks up the dropped seeds from the ground.

The frogs in the pond seem very lively as usually they are not to be seen, but just lately there are about half a dozen popping up during daylight hours and they can be heard croaking very loudly in the evening, and on the morning of the 23rd January I noticed the first small batch of frogspawn.

The Camellia buds are just opening and the Snowdrops and Crocus are just coming out into flower, so it seems that spring is in the air.