Easter Holidays

It’s the last day of the Easter holidays. I’ve not been too far off my local patch as my sister is revising for her GCSE’s, but we did have a trip out to Westonbirt Arboretum. Not much wildlife but it was amazing to look around the trees and plants.

I came across this Chaffinch with what looks like the warty growths, Fringilla papillomavirus which affects Chaffinches and Bramblings.

Sometimes these growths are small warts but they can grow to larger warts over time that engulf the whole leg. While some birds appear quite healthy, some birds may become lame.

Back in the garden I’ve been keeping a watch out for the Hedgehogs from last year. Others are posting Tweets and photos of their hedgehogs, but mine had yet to appear. Finally the trail camera managed to capture the hedgehog coming to drink from the dish of water.

The weather has been so dry and the ground is now fairly hard and dusty. The stream alongside the badger sett has dried up and it must be quite difficult for them to find worms.

I visited the sett this week and enjoyed watching a fox and a badger wandering around in the Bluebells.

I noticed that the badgers have been taking Bluebells down in to the sett for bedding.

Two of the local hares have paired up and I quite often see them together. The male is the one in the photo below, while the female, which is hidden in the dried grass, is very pale in colour, so they are easy to recognise.

Wheatear

During the first week of the holidays I got to talk on a local TV station called That’s Oxfordshire about ‘blogging about nature’ and getting young people involved in wildlife.

Yesterday I was really pleased to get some of my footage of Badgers on BBC South Today during an article about the impact of development on Badgers in Oxfordshire.

The Oxon Badger Group highlighted how Badger setts and long established foraging paths are being disrupted by the building of houses and roads.