Freezing cold day again in the South.

Friday 1st April 2022.

The track has been made to plant the wildflower mix at The Oaks Crematorium.

More like 1st December at the moment! Maybe God is playing an April Fool’s joke on us or the bloody Russians? On Sunday, I was actually getting a little bit sunburnt in the warm weather however, the jet stream decided to take a lunge south and threw our weather into Winter mode again! Snow and sleet showers have been falling from dark skies although there was a lot of bright sunshine in between and damn, it's very cold, with temperatures hardly reaching double figures! I shouldn't moan, because this happens around this time every year although, thankfully, the snow never laid.

I have not been putting the moth box out overnight due to the freezing temperatures overnight and so I had to rely on some bird sightings to fill my blog over the past few days. Yesterday, I had the job of going up to Swindon to retrieve some stuff for my employers and and the way there and back, I had a total of 5 Common Buzzards and 5 Red Kites seen from my vehicle. I also saw a Red-legged Partridge about to run across the A34, but quickly turned back and up onto the grass verge for safety. The amount of roadkill along that stretch of road is quite staggering: Deer, Badgers, Foxes and an enormous number of Pheasants too.  

Today, despite the freezing wind, The Oaks Crematorium produced another sighting of the male Blackcap by the edge of the woodland and the Green Woodpecker finally gave itself up, seen near the entrance of The Oaks as I was leaving late this afternoon.  Both Great Spotted Woodpecker and Nuthatch were heard calling in the woods again and overhead, a large flock of 30+ Med Gulls headed north. Just the one Common Buzzard sighting seen today and that was a single bird flying over the field behind The Oaks. A few White-tailed and Red-tailed Bumble bees braved the cold weather around the flower bay here, but no moths by the Book of Remembrance building this time.