Blackcap

The black cap is burbling away  in the trees now at Filnore and maybe in your garden.  It's a very tuneful, bubbly song, rather like a blackbird but without the sneeze at the end.

Video: Paul Dinning

Repetitive but varied song.

Although thrushes have been declining in numbers they can still be heard at Filnore Woods.

We shall be listening out for the distinctive song on our Dawn Chorus Walk.  The thrush has a great variety of phrases and often repeats each one two or three times before trying another one.

Another beautiful video from Paul Dinning

Robin

This is one of the most frequently heard singers we shall hear on Sunday 30th April on our Dawn Chorus Walk.

The robin's song is varied and musical but rather light and wistful.

Coltsfoot

The leaves of Coltsfoot are supposedly shaped like a young horse's footprint.

  They don't appear until after the flowers have gone, although in the photo below you can see the remains of the seedhead.  These plants are at the top of the path leading up to the viewpoint from the Jubilee Way.

The folowing photos, taken at the same location, show coltsfoot flowers, which are around, without the leaves, in February and March.

They look a bit like dandelions but the stems are covered in scales, not smooth tubes like the dandelion.

Crows and rooks

The five common corvids (crow family) birds are magpies, jackdaws, jays, crows and rooks.  Crows and rooks are the two that I find hardest to distinguish.

Rooks nest in rookeries with a dozen or more nests close together in neighbouring trees.  They make a continuous noise as they gossip to each other.

Crows are more solitary and when they caw they usually do three in a row rather than wittering on like a rook.  

If you get close you may see that the rook has a whitish face while the grow is unremittingly black.

Also the rooks bill is fairly straight while the crows bill is curved on top.

Their big cousin the raven has a heavier, even more curved bill but is much bigger and calls with a deep 'kronk'.

Ground Ivy

Where we cleared the bracken and brambles to coppice a section of hedge, a flurry of little blue flowers with purplish-red foliage has appeared.  In shady places the leaves stay green.

This is Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacea).  It's not related to ivy so it's old-fashioned name of Gill is perhaps better.

It was used to flavour bitter ale before hops were introduced to England in the 16th century.  Gill tea was sold as a cough remedy into the 19th century.  It was made by infusing the slightly minty leaves in boiling water  and adding honey.

Yellow Archangel

Yellow archangel is so called because, like its cousins the red deadnettle and the white deadnettle, which are sometimes called red archangel and white archangel, it flowers on or near 27th April, the day of the Archangel Michael.

I found this clump flowering beside the Jubilee Way, near the lower entrance from Vilner Farm.

Look carefully at the lower lip of the flower and you may see the red streaks like tiny spots of blood - maybe from the sword of the Archangel Michael.

Here's an extra image taken by Simon Harding