Wind, Weather & Wildlife?
March winds may blow, but this month will also bring numerous early signs of spring. Low temperatures in January and February have held back plant growth and affected a wide range of animals but increasing temperatures and day length will start the transformation of the Dorset countryside.
Let's start with the birds
Our garden blackbirds joined the dawn chorus in late February and their clear mellifluous outpourings will raise our spirits for much of the spring and summer as they hold territory and attract mates for two or three breeding cycles.
Yellowhammers are returning to the heathlands and hedgrows and the bright yellow males look quite exotic as they announce ‘A little bit of bread and….’. Well, to date I haven’t heard them complete the song with ‘….and no cheese’ but without doubt, no cheese will arrive in a week or two!
Large flocks of lapwings were still roaming the countryside in February but this month look out for paired birds displaying over arable fields and wet meadows. Their broad wings enable them to perform amazing acrobatic displays with headlong dives and slow wing beats on black and white wings as they utter their haunting ‘peeowit’ calls. A nesting pair faces major challenges from crows but when several pairs nest together, they can combine forces to beat off potential nest robbers.
First signs of Summer?
March is also the month to listen and look for our first summer migrants. Most chiffchaffs overwinter in west Africa and their northward journey starts in February, with the first birds arriving in Dorset around mid-March. Will they be late this year? Listen for that first slow repeated ‘chiff chaff’ song and experience the simple pleasure of knowing that the annual invasion of summer migrants is underway.
Wheatears from sub-Saharan Africa also arrive this month, although rarely stay to breed in Dorset, preferring western and northern Britain. However, this is only part of the story. Additional populations of wheatears migrate north out of Africa before fanning out to the north-west to breed in Iceland, Greenland and Canada , whilst others migrate north-east across Asia as far as Siberia! These are enormous journeys for smart little birds weighing only 20 30 grams.
Now for the plants
For those of us living near the Dorset coast, alexanders is a familiar umbellifer of roadside verges and rough ground whose early green leaves have been cut back by recurrent frosts. Even so this Mediterranean plant, probably first introduced by the Romans as a spring vegetable, is now growing fast. It may even produce a stem with a head of yellow-green flowers replete with buzzing insects in time to catch the eye of our early chiffchaffs.
Inland, try looking for wild daffodils which have pale yellow petals and a yellow trumpet. They are most frequent in old woods in west and north-west Dorset and beyond the Poole Basin. Sometimes they can be found in churchyards.
More generally our road verges, woods, damp fields and gardens will soon sparkle with the glossy yellow flowers of the lesser celandine. Normally an early herald of spring and sometimes even flowering in late January in Dorset, this year the eventual appearance of this common plant will be all the more welcome.
Basking in the sun!
The adder, our only venomous snake, can sometimes be seen basking in February or even in January in Dorset, but not this year. However, the males, which emerge from hibernation before the females will appear in March and spend several hours on most days basking but without feeding as they prepare for the coming breeding season.
On warm days look out for some of our overwintering butterflies, including the brimstone, peacock, comma and small tortoiseshell. This last species, having been unexpectedly scarce in 2007-08, made something of a comeback in 2009, so it will be interesting to see whether it has overwintered successfully.
The red Admiral, a migratory species, appears to have overwintered in the relatively warm southern counties of England in recent mild winters, but perhaps this winter will have proved too severe.
Wave goodbye...
And finally, as we relish the coming of spring, spare a thought for the millions of birds that have overwintered in Britain and are now preparing to undertake their own spring migration to northern Europe, Canada, Russia and the arctic coastline including the winter thrushes, some finches and numerous waders, ducks, geese and swans.
Written by John Wright
Dorset Wildlife Trust Member & Volunteer
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