Signs of Spring

Here's some assorted photos taken over the past couple of weeks, showing the Spring is finally arriving - a few weeks later than last year!

Two weeks ago the wood anemones were just raising their heads:
They're out now, and if we go up to the wood this weekend I'll get some photos.

Other flowers are coming out too. Over in Sweep Wood Tracy saw Daffodils and Lesser Celandine:
the snowdrops, however, have finished now, and are heavily laden with seed pods:
Buds are coming out on the trees now. Last week the chestnut buds were starting to split and show a hint of green:
and the same is happening to our fruit trees:
and also the mystery plum tree in Sweep Wood:
We were pleased to see that at least some of the sheltered oak seedlings have got through the winter as well - you can just about see the buds at the bottom of this shelter:
The bramble and nettles are getting going
and the whole wood is looking generally green:
There's a lot of wildlife activity too, especially male pheasants making themselves heard (and seen):
and some active digging at a badger sett in Sweep Wood:
Hopefully we'll have some more springtime pictures for you in the next couple of days...

Mike

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A new badger sett

Tracy was up in the woods today with a friend, and in Sweep Wood they found what appears to be a new badger sett:
Seeing as our shiny new infra-red trail camera has arrived this week, we're hoping to go and set it up tomorrow night to watch this location and see if we can get some pictures.

Mike

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Badger video!

We went badger watching again this evening, after doing a bit more work on the shelter. This time, rather than use the SLR with it's somewhat noisy shutter, I used our compact camera and took a video instead. Here you go:


Mike

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Rabbits and badgers

Here's what we saw on Tuesday before dusk - the moths will come in a later post, as I'm waiting for a list of them so I can ID all the ones I got photos of (there are a lot, and apparently 102 species were recorded that night!).

Down at the bottom of the wayleave we spied a rabbit through the brambles:
It was really not very afraid of us, perhaps it hasn't learned yet that humans might be dangerous...
As it got towards 8pm we went over to the badger sett to watch. Badgers have very poor eyesight, but a very good sense of smell, so as long as you sit downwind and keep fairly quiet you can get within 10 metres! While we were waiting I got a couple of photos of the scene, where you can see the disturbed earth around the sett:
We waited for about 15 minutes before we heard a rustling, and it got closer VERY slowly. After another 15 minutes a badger plodded into view, snuffling around in the undergrowth looking for food. We tried to get a photo, but the shutter noise made it wary, and it disappeared into the sett. We waited though, and it came out again a couple more times. After talking to David from Scrag Copse we've learned that we should wait until we've watched them a few times before trying to photograph them, so they can get used to our presence. Also, we need to go earlier, as we saw the badger coming back to the sett, not coming out!

We're going up this evening to do a bit more work on the shelter, so after that we might wander over again and see what we see...

Mike

UPDATE: we got a video of the badgers, see it here.

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