TUESDAY 21ST APRIL 2020

OWTHORPE

I packed my week’s permitted exercise into one day and walked out to the Owthorpe area via Borders Wood and back home through Cotgrave Forest seeing and hearing just two Buzzards and no other raptors despite clear blue skies and a bracing easterly. I did hear my first Lesser Whitethroat though.

Hoary Cress (Lepidium draba)

Hoary Cress is now on show along our lanes and the soft verges along the track adjacent to the A46 have a massive population of Glaucous Sedge.

Glaucous Sedge (Carex flacca)
Taddies

Despite extensive looking in the very nice wildlife ponds at the A46 I managed to see just two tadpoles but this puddle in a wheel rut in Borders Wood was chock-a-block with them.

Borders Wood also hosted my first odonata of the year – predictably Large Red Damselfly.

Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma mymphula)

Views from the footpath near Cropwell Wolds Farm are immense with a near 180° panorama of the Belvoir escarpment to the east and most of Nottingham to the north-west.

Nottingham and beyond
We occasionally get birds (just small ones) on our mouse table.