April Nature Diary

April is a really lovely month when the trees and hedges are starting to come into leaf and the spring flowers are starting to appear. Everything looks fresh and new! In the woods particularly the white flowers of the wood anemone and later on the blue of the bluebells together make a really pretty sight. The cowslips are also starting to flower and even some early flowering orchids such as the early purple orchid and the green winged orchid.

With the plants now starting to flower, more species of butterfly can be seen including the peacock, orange tip and speckled wood. On warmer days some species of damselfly can be seen near open water.

When you are near water, look and see if there is frog and toad spawn. This is the time when both frogs and toads are heading back to ponds to breed. If you want to put a really good wildlife habitat into your garden, there is nothing better than a wildlife pond. When you have dug it, filled it with water and put in some suitable plants, just wait and see! It may start slowly but you will be surprised after a year or so what wildlife will live in your pond. I advise you not to put goldfish in the pond as they are predators to the larvae and eggs of some of the wild pond species. Garden ponds have become very important as many of the farmland ponds have disappeared over the years.

Birds are looking now for a partner and to build a nest so the bird song increases in volume and diversity. Listen out for the lovely melody of the blackbird and the song thrush.

Of course, there is a lot of activity this month with some birds such as redwing, fieldfare, visiting swans, geese and waders leaving to go back farther north to breed in places such as Scandinavia. But we have plenty of birds that come back to the UK from warmer climates to breed here. The cuckoo with its very recognisable call can be heard in woodlands now. This bird is known for its habit of finding a nest of a smaller bird with eggs in it. It then lays an egg and the bird that built the nest will bring up the cuckoo chick. The cuckoo chick will hatch before the other chicks and be much larger. In many cases the cuckoo chick will throw the other eggs or chicks out of the nest.

It is always a sign of spring and the coming of summer when the house martins, swallows, swifts and sand martins are seen in the skies after their long trip back from Africa. So how can you tell the difference with these migrants that look quite similar?

The swift is almost completely blackish with a white chin and a short forked tail, the swallow has dark blue upper parts, chestnut-red forehead and throat and a deeply forked tail, the house martin has a white rump patch and completely white underparts but the rest is a blue-black and the sand martin has a brown back and a band across its chest and white underparts.

If you happen to live or visit Bridgend in South Wales go to the bridge near the town centre and you will see the sand martins as they fly around over the water hunting insects. The Council have made special holes in the stone walls for the sand martins to nest in. It is a really remarkable sight to watch these birds flying in and out of the holes and often clinging on to the stone near their nest sites.

If you are walking out in the countryside and you look on a sunny bank on the edge of a wood you may see the beautiful adder basking in the sun. All reptiles are cold blooded and need the sun to warm them up. This is our only venomous snake although it would only bite if it felt threatened or you fell on it. So stand still and watch quietly. Another reptile you may see on a warm day is a slow worm. This is not a snake or a worm, it is a legless lizard.

All mammals will be more active now and even the dormouse should be coming out of hibernation. This cute little animal lives in broadleaved woodland in a hole in a tree close to the ground. Unfortunately it is an animal that is hardly ever seen and its presence is usually by seeing signs that it lives there.

Badgers mostly have their young in February but some can be born in mid January and those cubs may be starting to appear near the sett above the ground. The adults would have spring cleaned the sett and will also be coming out each night to feed.

The most obvious mammals that can be seen as it gets dark are bats hunting for moths and flying insects. If you have a bat detector it is possible to tell which species of bat is flying past you by looking at the different frequencies on the instrument. It is really fun to be able to identify the different types of bat and of course it is important to know what species live in your area.

So get out there with your identity books and maybe even a bat detector and see what wildlife lives near you.

Now we have reached March we are all looking forward to warmer weather and our natural world also starts to come alive again.

When you look in woods and in hedgerows you may notice that the first spring flowers are starting to appear. There is the bright yellow of the lesser celandine and the pretty white wood anemone which when they are flowering together make a lovely sight. Of course there are other flowers at this time of year like the wild daffodils, the primrose, the sweet violet and the yellow daisy like flower of coltsfoot.

If you look at the hedgerows towards the end of the month, you may see that the blackthorn has started to flower. This is often confused with hawthorn, another hedgerow plant that doesn't flower until May. Blackthorn flowers first and then the leaves appear whereas hawthorn produces its leaves first and then the flowers. You may have seen the furry looking catkins on the pussy willow (the name usually given to goat willow). There are lots of buds now on the trees such as horse chestnut, elder and hawthorn.

With the early flowers starting to appear you may see the first butterfly emerging from hibernation. This is usually the brimstone butterfly. The male is a beautiful lemon yellow and the female is a greenish white. The adult butterflies are important for pollinating yellow primroses. The eggs are not laid until the spring when the buckthorn bushes begin to leaf as the caterpillars only feed on this plant. Bumblebees are also staring to emerge now and can be seen buzzing around on warmer days. Ladybirds start to emerge from their communal hibernation.

If you have not already done it, make sure you clear out the old nesting material from bird nest boxes. This makes sure there are no nasty mites and you will find that the birds will be starting to look for a good place to raise a family. I have noticed that there are sparrows already eyeing up our nest boxes and checking them out!!

If you go out into the woods at dawn you will hear the dawn chorus of birds such as song thrush, blackbird, greenfinch, great tit, robin all establishing their territories. The first summer migrant to arrive in Britain is the northern wheatear that winters in central Africa and followed by the chiffchaff, a small green warbler that winters in south and west Europe and North Africa. The chiffchaff has a very easily recognised call chiff-chaff-chiff-chiff-chaff. So go to your local woods and see if you can hear this bird.

In fields, the lapwing are also establishing their territories and these birds can be identified by their swirling and tumbling flight and dropping from the sky only to rise up at the last minute calling the very distinctive “peewit”. These beautiful birds are a shiny green, black and white in colour with a long wispy crest on the head.

Also in the fields you may see hares boxing each other. It was once thought that only the males fought perhaps to impress female hares or to warn off rival male hares, but it is between a male hare (jack) and a female hare (jill) with the female fighting off the over enthusiastic male.  

At dusk and dawn some bats are starting to emerge from hibernation. The most common species seen at this time of year, especially around towns is our smallest bat, the pipistrelle. They are hunting for flying insects that are also coming out from hibernation now.

Watch out for toads moving towards their breeding ponds after spending winter hibernating under stones and logs.

So get out there with your binoculars and books and take a look!