: Exploring Our Woodlands

The days are short, the rain is cold, there’s frost on the leaves and the wind bites my nose; it must be January! But it’s not just us human beings that feel the cold. Our feathered friends need to eat a lot more during the winter months to keep from freezing to death in the night. Have a look at the and you’ll see how busy it is!

Winter is a great time to attract birds to your garden because they are less shy about coming to get food. You might even attract some species that don’t normally visit garden feeders.

There’s some great advice on attracting birds to your garden at the RSPB website, and while you’re there why not get involved in the Big Garden Birdwatch on the 24th & 25th January? You can take part in the world’s biggest bird survey from the comfort of your living room!

Hi there all! Hope you’re enjoying watching the now that it’s up and running. It’s almost always busy at the feeder at the moment so there’s plenty to keep you entertained (or in my case distracted from work!). It’s particularly popular with Great Tits, Blue Tits and Coal Tits as well as Greenfinch, Chaffinch and House Sparrow. The Nuthatch and Robin are also regulars with Goldfinch and Bullfinch making infrequent visits. The feeder also suffers regular raids from our resident squirrels and although they’re a bit of a nuisance for the birds it’s pretty entertaining watching their acrobatic attempts at getting to the food!

Autumn is a great time to spot fungi as many fruiting bodies (the interesting shapes that we see above ground) bloom at this time of year. So I've decided to post my mushroom and toadstool photos on this blog as the season wears on. Enjoy!

Firstly, apologies for the larger than usual gap between this posting and my previous blog; I have been very busy! Many aspects of the project are nearing completion and the presence of the woodland project at St Fagans is becoming more and more obvious. So here’s what’s been going on…

The path through the woodland has been dug and the panels will be with us in the next few weeks. I’m very excited about the panels as they have a lot of brilliant hands-on learning displays such as a wind-up arm that plays bird song and a load of models of footprints, feeding remains and droppings of woodland mammals! It looks like the path will be ready sometime in June and it promises to be an excellent addition to the museum.

The website too is near completion and will be live in a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to watching the birds as they come and go, and am curious as to which species we’ll get visiting our feeders and nest boxes. The pond cam should be a delight too, and I can’t wait to have a go at filming newts!

This week has felt like the first week of summer with temperatures reaching 23 degrees Celsius. I took a group of visitors on a bird walk at 5:30am on Saturday to celebrate international dawn chorus day and it was a great success. As well as resident species we also saw migrants such as Blackcap, and the songs of Chiffchaff have been ringing around since late March. The woods are full of birdsong as the birds sing to mark their territories and attract a mate, and birds with beaks full of nesting material have become a common sight. There has also been a riot of colour in the woods over the past month with the blossoming of spring flowers such as primrose, lesser celandine, wood anemones, garlic mustard and bluebell. The trees too have begun to blossom and grow fresh green leaves and the canopy is getting thicker every day.

That’s it for now, but keep a look out for the website and the woodland path next month!

It is mid February and the wet and windy weather that persisted throughout January has given way to clearer skies. The days have been sunny and bright but quite cold at the same time, and the clear nights are leaving ponds and puddles iced over long into the morning.

Many of the early signs that spring is on the way have been on show for a few weeks now. Snowdrops have been up since late January and hazel catkins have been swinging in the breeze since the beginning of the month. Primrose and lesser celandines have also been growing about the site since mid February. The hawthorn bushes are growing fresh green leaves and the daffodils are flowering too. I’ve also seen quite a few bumblebees since the start of the month and I found a lone ladybird perching on a twig.

Amphibians such as frogs and newts filling up small ponds are a good indicator that spring is truly here, because it means the water is warming up. I found a few newts in the tannery pits last week but it’s still a bit too cold for them with the water prone to freezing in the night. Keep your eyes peeled for frogs spawning around the beginning of March when it’s a bit warmer. Listen out too for chiffchaffs singing later in March. They are usually one of the first of our migrant bird species to arrive from Africa.

Last week was the school half term holidays and I ran workshops based on spotting the signs of spring. Over 1200 visitors took part in a leaf quiz, and went out spotting spring flowers and birds with my spring trails. You can download spring trails and record what you’ve seen on the Nature Detectives website. You can also visit the brand new Exploring Our Woodlands website which will be taking shape over the next few weeks.