Occasional Notes from a Dog Walker
February 2025
"February Fill-dyke" didn't live up to its name, at least initially. The paths dried out after Storm Hermiana and Dot the Dog came home relatively clean after her walks. It seemed to be a rather damp, dank depressing first half of the month.
The lighter mornings brought louder spring birdsong and the birds visiting our feeders became more colourful as they adopted their breeding plumage. The squirrels suddenly stopped trying to raid the feeders and more or less disappeared – perhaps off to start begetting a new generation of plunderers. A magpie visited the whitebeam on our front verge, gathering nesting material. It didn't seem to be building a nest there yet but perhaps was just gathering twigs to cart off elsewhere.
Some (obvious) strangers to the village crossed DtD's and my path on the way home as we walked past the small flood field heading for Henbury Rise. A pair or two of ducks pottered about and the strangers remarked "Ooh – it's a swamp!" It was!
The snowdrops continued to put on a splendid display – the best I have seen for a long time. We have mostly wild-type ones in the garden and under the tree on the grass verge, but there are a huge number of named cultivars (most popular seems to be "elwesii" – it grows up to a foot high). The difference seems largely to be in the green markings on the white flowers.
Long-tailed tits appeared in numbers on the feeders – supposed to be a harbinger of seriously cold weather. We had seen the odd one or two recently but this was the first time we had seen them mob-handed (do I mean mob-winged?). The goldfinches came too when the temperature dropped for several days with a bitter east wind. They were difficult to count with frequent coming and goings, but there appeared to be at least 15, possibly more. They looked very bright and I thought they must be getting their breeding plumage.
The small sarcococca shrub in the front garden came into flower. It emits a wonderful scent, far beyond its diminutive overall size and its tiny flowers.
Last year I wrote about a tree in the grass verge on Hightree Drive that was almost covered in a tiny, pearl-like fungus. At the end of this month it was felled, leaving an inelegant stump.
We met a woodlouse on the bathroom floor – from whence it came I don't know. It was not of the "pilling" variety whereas the ones we see in the garden and in the logs under the front porch are. Anyway, it made a swift exit out of the landing window with a little help (!). It reminded me of the old Beano joke – "What did the earwig say as it jumped off the top of the Empire State Building? "Earwig – Oh"".
Having recently been to a talk entitled "Be Weather Wise" I remarked to Dot the Dog on seeing a halo round the sun one morning at month's-end that it would rain that day – it did, at lunchtime. Before that I watched the magpie and its mate seriously beginning to build a rather precarious nest (doubtful it will last). The same morning S called me to the kitchen window having spotted a large bird circling that she thought might be a buzzard. As I joined her a squadron of crows scrambled to chase it off – identification confirmed! A thrush sang at twilight.
The crows took exception to the magpies' homebuilding too and chased them away, but a day or two later construction resumed and the nest became quite sizeable – and much more robust than I had imagined.
A friend recommended an app (horrible word) called "Merlin" for the mobile phone that identifies birds from their song. The first morning I tried it, it brought up all the usual suspects (blackbird, various tits, goldfinches and so on) but also redwing – we occasionally see them in the garden, but not this winter and they must have been getting ready for their northward spring migration. On the penultimate day of the month I tried the app at sunset and it turned up thrush, blackbird and (to my surprise) blackcap. It's amazing what birds are about that we never or rarely see.
A sunny but piercingly cold few days with morning frosts meant DtD and I could venture further afield without her getting disgustingly dirty (outside tap being turned off because of the frosts, so no hosing down). She obviously felt quite liberated.
Last day of the month; dull morning, beautiful sunny afternoon. There was plentiful birdsong around 4pm so I fired up "Merlin" in the garden – it recorded blackbird, starling, blue tit, chaffinch, jackdaw and greenfinch. The app is quite addictive! S watched a treecreeper on the laburnum in the front garden – we usually see it (or them) on the sycamore at the back.
As ever
Horrid of Henbury