A Moment with Nature: Recent Episodes
Toby Murcott
This week I head onto a local common to see what is growing there and discover a noisy stonechat, developing damsons and an ash tree that seems to be thriving despite ash dieback.
Epsiode 21. I meet some disapproving Canada geese, consider an old country saying and get distracted by a red kite, ducks and a crane fly.
A longer episode this week as I watch a red tailed bumblebee carefully forage deep inside a bluebell and pause to listen to the spring birdsong. There's also a geometrical clocktower flower and I get a little philosophical about the importance of biodiversity.
Walking on the May bank holiday I find an untidy fairy ring of St George's mushrooms, an early edible (though make sure you are absolutely confident of your identification if you are going to try eating them, there are other similar looking mushrooms that are extremely poisonous) and a real find. Spring is progressing incredibly quickly and we are coming up on peak bluebell so get out into the woods as much as you can.
I stay close to home this week to watch the insects that have appeared in the warmth of the sun to gather nectar and pollinate the flowers they feed from.
I go searching for the tadpoles that I know are lurking in a nearby pond without much success and muse on the fact that younger trees appear to come into leave sooner than mature ones.
The chiffchaffs and blackcaps have returned and the hedges are covered in clouds of white prunus flowers.
Bluebells arrive very early in a sunny hotspot; possible hint of a swallow and a scarlet elf cap makes and appearance.
Large numbers of toads have been spawning and the pondweed is strewn with toadspawn necklaces. The birds have been sparring over territory and a couple of chainsaws prompted an unexpectedly philosophical moment.
I find the frog pond full of spawn and mating frogs, perhaps a boom year for tadpoles is on the way.
With snow on the ground the birds seem to have stopped singing and the world is eerily quiet. Yet spring continues as I find the first frogspawn of the year and get a few branch loads of thawing snow dumped on my head.
The first episode of the newly sprung spring, which starts on March 1st. Masses of daffodils, a newly identified plant and a life history doodled into a leaf.
This week I head up a local hill to see if the recent unseasonably warm weather has brought spring forward. And I finally record the elusive owls I've been chasing with my recorder for weeks.
I head out much earlier in the year than usual to a wild flower meadow just to see what is happening as spring arrives.
As spring approaches the dawn chorus revs up. I find a beautiful example of green stain fungus doing it's job breaking down rotting wood and pond creatures making intricate doodles on the bottom of a pond.
A warm sun brings an early bee to a gorse flower. I miss a swooping sparrowhawk and fail in my attempt to trick an artificial intelligence.
January omnibus. Each month I'll be posting an omnibus of all of the podcasts from that month.
I spent an hour on the morning of Sunday 29th Jan doing the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. I like to do this each year if I can, it is perhaps one of the most comprehensive survey of birds in our country and very useful data.
Lots of bird activity as they start gearing up for the spring breeding season. And a surprising find in the woods.
Episode 2 - Windy ash trees, a chance encounter and the impact of the December frosty spell.
These podcasts are the result of my passion for nature and are recorded on walks I take in the countryside whenever I can. Each explores some of the little details of the natural world I find endlessly fascinating.