Chris Lansdell's Birding & Nature Diary: It's got to be local! 6 April 2020

With the lockdown continuing, I, like many other naturalists have been keeping it local for the last couple of weeks. Belinda and I are lucky enough to live in a rural area with a garden and access to field footpaths, tracks and quiet lanes just yards away from the house. We have been ensuring we get our daily exercise fix and now know every footpath intimately!

Wildflowers continue to dominate things and I think I know where to find every local species that is out now. 2 Bulbous Buttercups out along Mill Lane were new for me (although I've probably see loads in the past and not known how to id them!

Butterflies have been out in the thankfully sunny weather - Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock, Comma and Holly Blue while we also had a good emergence of Seven-spot Ladybirds and Dark-bordered Bee-flys in the garden.

I have also dug my moth trap out of the garage where it's not been used for a couple of years. This was mainly due to a lack of time but now time is the one thing I have plenty of! Trapping on the last 2 nights has produced 8 species - Brindled Beauty, Early Thorn, Early Grey, Common Quaker, Clouded Drab, Hebrew Character, Brindled Pug and Twin-spotted Quaker.

'Apocolist' continues but things have understandably slowed down a bit:

No.30 - Rook (a single fly-by from the bedroom window)
No.31 - Common Buzzard (3 distantly to the north then 1 over the house)
No.32 - Herring Gull (c6 circling over and very vocal)
No.33 - Sparrowhawk (circling over house being mobbed by Carrion Crow)

Stop press

No.34 - Linnet (singing towards Guildhall Lane and scoped from house)

Also today - the first Swallow of the year high over Semere Lane plus c25 Fieldfare and 2 Redwings