Recording the first signs of spring

The 11-year-old and other members of the family look out for a heron regularly to be seen on a favourite perch, and also see other waterside birds.

Taking part in Springwatch is something that can be built into everyday activities as Alfie, his mother Jane Harrison, and other members of the family have found.

“On our walks we see what is going on, as we go around Christ Church Meadow, down by the River Thames, on our visits to Headington Hill Park, where there are a lot of good trees, and to the CS Lewis Nature Reserve at Risinghurst,” said Mrs Harrison.

“We go out regularly around the same routes and begin to become familiar with what is going on there.

“We have seen fieldfares, blue tits, and long-tailed tits — in quite large groups in the park.

“We see jays, and the magpies are very prolific this year. We have some nesting in our garden, and they are very clever, quite ingenious at jumping up and managing to get at the hanging fat balls. We also see both green and great-spotted woodpeckers.”

Among records which the family have already sent in to the Woodland Trust have been sightings of a blackbird collecting nesting material, a particularly early peacock butterfly, seen in February and snowdrops and celandines seen in the woodland at Headington Hill Park.

“It is very useful to have the Springwatch chart as a guide to the signs to look out for,” added Mrs Harrison.

Early signs of spring are a pleasant surprise — and offer the encouraging prospect of the brightness and colour to come.

Observers for the Woodland Trust’s Nature Calendar recording scheme have been out and about in Oxfordshire, noting these indications of the changing seasons.

The times at which events are taking place in the annual calendar also provide indications of how nature is being affected by climate change.

The Harrisons have a wildlife-friendly garden at their own home, with undisturbed areas which wildlife can enjoy.

“We have seen the blackbird collecting nesting material here,” Alfie said. “We have put out a pile of hay from which the nesting birds can help themselves. And we have made a hedgehog pile, where the hedgehogs can nest and hibernate quietly.”

Alfie keeps records of what he sees, including the regularly visiting fox.

He says that birds are his favourite form of wildlife. From watching them through his binoculars, he has made records of chaffinches, robins, various members of the tit family, and his nesting blackbirds among many others.

Alfie is home-educated, and Mrs Harrison finds that their studies of wildlife prove extremely valuable as a means of creating enthusiasm and an encouragement to Alfie to read and write about what he has seen.

He has had an interest in the natural world around him from an early age.

Like the Harrison family, other Nature’s Calendar observers have been out and about, looking for the first sightings in Oxfordshire of springtime events.

The first song thrush was heard singing on January 10 and hazel catkins with their minute red flowers also visible were seen in Wantage on January 31.

Ladybirds were showing their presence in Abingdon on February 10. Bumblebees also chose Abingdon for an early appearance, on February 20, and were recorded in Woodstock three days later.

Also in Woodstock, a brimstone butterfly was fluttering its wings on February 21. A Red Admiral was spotted in Oxford on March 1 and a peacock butterfly made an appearance on March 18.

An alder tree in Abingdon was coming into leaf on March 6. It appears that the Abingdon area is well-off for recording recruits, for the first sighting of a wood anemone was also there on March 14.

Following the appearance of the snowdrops in the first months of the year, celandines and other spring flowers are now following, with the bluebells to come before long, usually from April onwards.

The Woodland Trust is also receiving reports from its observers all over the country of frogspawn, of newts, and of more species of butterflies on the wing.

The trust provides its recorders with a chart on which to mark their sightings. Sightings can also be recorded online.

It lists 21 of the most usually seen bird species, for which records are needed of the first sightings, first nest-building indications and first songs of adults collecting food to take to the newly-hatched young.

The species include resident birds such as the blackbirds, rooks and turtle doves, and summer migrants such as the swallows, swifts and house martins.

The list of insects includes the ladybirds, red-tailed bumblebees and queen wasps and ten of the more commonly-seen butterflies, including the small tortoiseshell and the small white. First sightings of these and of the amphibians are requested.

On trees and shrubs, the first bud burst and first leaf appearance are of importance, with the first flowering on trees such as the horse chestnut and rowan, and shrubs such as the blackthorn, elder and hawthorn.

The list of trees to observe also includes the ash, beech, both the pedunculate and sessile oak, the silver birch and sycamore.

Shrubs of interest include the blackthorn — with its early blossom — elder, and one most likely to be seen in gardens, the lilac.

An early appearance among the flowers is usually that of the yellow colts-foot with garlic mustard, cuckoo flower, and the ox-eye daisy to follow.

The first lawn cut is of significance — the first reported from Oxfordshire was on March 16.

Among the grasses — cocksfoot, meadow foxtail, Timothy and Yorkshire fog — first flowerings also contribute to the Springwatch data.

The Woodland Trust has a benchmark year of 2001, against which all records are measured.

For 2008, the results indicated that the spring did not come as early as it did in 2007, when the first months were exceptionally mild.

This year’s Nature’s Calendar reports will help to show what effect the weather of 2009 is having on the countryside.

Details of how to add records to Springwatch are available at www.naturescalendar.org.uk, and by contacting the Woodland Trust on 01476 584878.