What you might see on aLocal walkin Spring
While we're all staying at home to help slow the spread of Covid-19, people are finding beauty in their immediate locality. Even the tiniest, commonest spring flower or blue tit hopping on the branches of a tree outside the window feels like a minor miracle during these difficult weeks. What you might see on a local walk in spring depends where you are, but could include wild flowers that grow almost anywhere, on roadside verges and grassy slopes, in parks, woods and fields. Look out for birds, animals and insects too - squirrels and starlings, colourful goldfinches, butterflies or bumblebees. Here are some of the things you might see beside the path on an exercise walk near you in April. And if you can’t access them now – for whatever reason – enjoy the pictures for a virtual spring.
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1. Animals
With a bit of patience and practice, a local walk in the UK can become a wildlife safari. Urban foxes, parkland squirrels, herds of deer running over the fields, and tiny shrews scampering into hedgerows are all among common animal sightings in Britain.
- Squirrels These furry-tailed mammals are probably the easiest British animals to spot outdoors on a walk. At home in parks and gardens, squirrels can often be seen running up trees as people approach.
- Hares and rabbits This is the time of year to spot long-eared hares racing over the fields or even “boxing” each other. Easier to spot and smaller, rabbits are common on grassy spaces near towns and villages, where they often come out to graze in the late afternoon and evening sunshine. Look out for small round droppings and close-cropped grass.
- Deer The UK’s largest land animal is the red deer. The stags have distinctive branched antlers for that classic monarch-of-the-glen silhouette. The smaller, brownish roe deer are easily startled and bound over the fields in groups. Fallow deer are the Bambi-style spotty ones and muntjac are tiny, generally under half a meter high, with no antlers and a hunched outline with their rear end higher than the front.
- Foxes are now as likely to be seen in the town as the country. These rust-red furry omnivores are generally only about the size of a house cat and can easily slip through fences and behind dustbins. Look out for foxes particularly after dark.
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2. Birds
Birdwatching is one of those things you can still do even if you can’t go outside at all. Common garden birds are now busy outside the window, emboldened by the relative lack of people.
- Blue tit These small birds are (you guessed it!) mainly blue with bits of yellow plus white cheeks with a black eyestripe. The similar great tit is more greenish with a black head and chest stripe.
- Starlings are building their nests right now and often favour house eaves. Unlike blackbirds, which also have yellow beaks, starlings are glossy with white spots.
- House Sparrow You’re quite likely to spot these little brown and grey birds with a distinctive black bib and a grey cap.
- Wood pigeon These plump grey birds with white neck patches can often be heard making soothing cooing noises in the neighbourhood trees.
- Goldfinch These little brightly coloured garden visitors are less common, but very pretty with yellow on their wings and red on their faces.
- Robin The little brown bird with the orange breast is not just confined to Christmas cards. They sing beautifully during the spring breeding season.
- Long-tailed tit (pictured) Doesn’t show up as often as some other garden birds, but always good to see: small and fluffy, black, white and pinkish with a long, black-and-white tail.
- Swallows have started arriving already on the South coast and will soon be swooping overhead with their narrow forked tails.
3. Spring Flowers
In Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, the shepherdess Perdita (who is really a lost princess) lists violets, daffodils, oxlips, lilies, and pale primroses as “flowers o’ the spring” that she’d like to give Prince Florizel. Some of them have been budding in woods and hedges for weeks already. Others, like bluebells are getting ready to burst into flower during April.
- Sweet violets On grassy banks and woodland floor, sweet violets are among the earliest flowers to appear, tiny harbingers of warmer days ahead. With their heart-shaped leaves and delicate smell, they’re a by-word for romance. Look out for white violets, a variation of the commoner blueish-purple.
- Primroses have also been going strong since February in many parts of the country. Their delicate pale yellow flowers decorate railway banks and roadsides.
- Wood Anemone Carpets of these white stars (pictured above) spread out in the woods from March onwards with intricate leaves and sometimes pink-tinged petals. Following the light, they open fully only when it’s sunny.
- Celandines These starry yellow flowers are part of the buttercup family. Celandines are among the earliest flowers to appear, followed by golden yellow buttercups, which carpet damp fields and meadows from April. Larger kingcups (aka marsh marigolds) pop up in gold clumps from March near streams, lakes and canals.
- Bluebells Each spring, woods across the UK fill with lakes of bluebells, one of the world’s great wild flower shows. Britain has half the world’s population of bluebells and this year’s relatively mild, wet weather flowed by spring sunshine is bringing them out early. They generally flower in April and May, later as you move northwards, and are one of the species that suggest a patch of woodland is ancient.
4. Flowering trees
Hazel trees have been sporting their dangling yellow catkins since February. During March, the white-blossomed blackthorn has put on a particularly spectacular show this spring along with pink ornamental cherries on suburban streets. And blossom season has only just begun. It’s a good time to spot birds in the trees too – while there are still not too many leaves for them to hide in.
- Hazel Dangling yellow catkins appear in the woods and hedges along with snowdrops at the very start of spring, but they often carry on into April.
- Blackthorn or sloe There’s been a regular avalanche of these delicate white blossoms this year, covering the hedges like snow. These bushes are probably better known for its fruit – the blue-black sloes whose sharp juice turns bottles of gin and sugar purple in time for Christmas.
- Apple and cherry Pink blossom along the hedges in April is often some form of apple tree. Some of these sprouted from thrown-away cores or household rubbish. Wild cherries, often with frothy white blossom, are also an April sight, as celebrated by A. E. Houseman in A Shropshire Lad:“Loveliest of trees, the cherry nowIs hung with bloom along the bough,And stands about the woodland rideWearing white for Eastertide.”
- Hawthorn Looking forward to May, the abundant flowers of May blossom are much more robust and creamy than the earlier blackthorn. Smelling slightly unpleasant (a bit like cat’s piss) hawthorn is a tree with folkloric connections.
- Elder Even further ahead, the flat creamy bunches of tiny elderflowers will be ready around late May or June sometime to make into elderflower cordial.
5. Insects
The thousands of species of bugs and beetles in UK parks and gardens will keep any nature spotter busy. As the days get warmer, look out for bees and butterflies on the flowers.
- Ladybirds We’ll soon start seeing these well known red beetles with black spots again. Ladybirds come out of hibernation in April to find a mate.
- Bees There are hundreds of species of bees in the UK, including 24 different bumblebees. But only one type of honeybee, thinner and less furry than a bumble with orangey gold-and-black stripes.
- Butterflies The most common garden butterflies include the handsome red admiral (black with red bands and white dots) and the dramatic peacock (red with colourful eyespots on the wings).
- Dragonflies and damselflies You can spot red damselflies from April onwards while May and the summer months bring the turquoise flash of a common blue damselfly or the green of an Emperor dragonfly. If you live near a pond or stream, look out for these shiny long-bodied insects hovering over the water.
