Another beautiful day today; 9C and feeling warm in the sun with a gentle SW breeze. I set out fairly early (for me nowadays!!!) for a walk around the cemetery, woodland burial ground and a circuit of the Horsefield (Gooseman's Field). I was pleased to see and hear jackdaw and housesparrow as I walked down the busy main road towards the cemetery. House sparrow was particularly pleasing as they are musch less common nowadays and we never get them in our garden even though these ones were only a couple of hundred yards from home.
As soon as I turned down the access road to the cemetery, the traffic noise vanished and all was calm. Once in the cemetery I followed the perimeter route around the older parts of the burial ground. Bird song was all around, mainly robins which is often the case. There must be a huge population of robins; I am rarely out of earshot of one. I also heard/saw blue and great tit, goldfinch, greenfinch, blackbird, wren, chaffinch and long-tailed tit. More primroses and daffodils appear each day whilst snowdrops are beginning to go over now; they are finished completely in the garden. As 'The Historian' would say, "Well that's another year gone!".
Halfway around the woodland burial ground I squeezed through the fence and crossed over the ditch into the Horsefield. Actually it's not so much of a squeeze now as another fence rail has been removed. Although I don't really approve of this practice, I have to say that there used to be access out of the woodland burial ground onto the common land of the Horsefield but the council, in their wisdom (or lack of) padlocked the gate. What do they expect!!!
Once across the ditch I could hear the linnets immediatley and found them all around Gooseman's They stick together in small companies and always sound as if they are in the middle of heated debate. They are also incredibly flighty and very difficult to get close to for photography. As I made my circuit of the fields I was hoping for early butterflies but non were to be found. A naturalist friend who also calls this area his local patch agrees with me that things are slow on the butterfly and moth front so far this year. A neighbour and good friend of ours (Gothic Dave), who is interested and knowledgable in all manner of subjects, helps with harvest mouse surveys and tells me that they found four nests on Gooseman't field; wonderful news. In the south west corner of the site I found four stonechats; I had been looking for them for ages.
Back in the woodland burial ground I disturbed a sparrowhawk which hurtled out onto the fields. When I arrived at the alder copse in the main cemetery I was photographing the catkins when I noticed that a newly planted tree was also producing catkins. The plant label identified it as an Alnus glutinosa, a black alder. According to google it is the same species as common alder but the young catkins look different; perhaps they will turn out to be the same. I shall enjoy watching it grow over the years.
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