{"id":211,"date":"2014-04-14T15:53:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T15:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/?p=211"},"modified":"2014-04-14T15:53:47","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T15:53:47","slug":"a-six-warbler-walk-first-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/14\/a-six-warbler-walk-first-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"A Six Warbler Walk… First of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

A high pressure zone is bringing bright and mainly sunny weather to Britain, but as it’s not overhead it is also bringing quite a cold breeze. Down at Wraysbury Lakes, all the winter ducks have left, with just Tufted, Mallard and a pair of Gadwall remaining. Two Great Crested Grebes wandered around each other, not quite getting into a courtship dance. <\/p>\n

Things were more exciting on the birdsong front. Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs sang sweetly all over. A Cetti’s sang very loud, very close by the lakeside as always, first in front … I stalked up very quietly … and then behind me. Invisible, the skulker. In the thicker scrub, several Whitethroats sang their scratchy short song, the first this year; and at least three Willow Warblers sang their descending scales, also the first of the year. And, briefly, one Garden Warbler gave me a burst of his even, musical tunefulness. There’s often a Sedge Warbler near the river but not apparently today. More song came from the Robins, a Song Thrush, and a Chaffinch or two.<\/p>\n

Overhead, a Grey Heron circled upwards towards a Boeing 747-400 and did its best to resemble a soaring stork or crane, quite impressive really with broad, downcurved wings rather like one of those air-filled kites made only of light cloth. <\/p>\n

\"St<\/a>
St George’s Mushroom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A small patch of St George’s Mushrooms nestled among the Potentilla leaves by the path; it’s about the only edible mushroom at this time of year, but I don’t pick them, both for conservation reasons and because I’m not keen on their rather mealy taste. <\/p>\n

The first Speckled Wood butterflies of the year are in evidence; they are fiercely territorial already, chasing off numerous Peacock butterflies. A few Green-Veined Whites settled, frail and shy, on the thicker herbs. <\/p>\n

\"Ground<\/a>
Ground Ivy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Great patches, almost carpets of Ground Ivy, which sounds a lowly herb, but looks glorious among the low-cropped grass, shining in the sunshine. It’s in the Labiate or Mint family, and has pretty rather short toothed leaves, purple-tinged, with attractive blue lipped flowers that are really quite orchid-like if you ignore their long tubes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A high pressure zone is bringing bright and mainly sunny weather to Britain, but as it’s not overhead it is also bringing quite a cold breeze. Down at Wraysbury Lakes, all the winter ducks have left, with just Tufted, Mallard and a pair of Gadwall remaining. Two Great Crested Grebes wandered around each other, not … Continue reading A Six Warbler Walk… First of the Year<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[90,88],"tags":[20,47,59,124,126,125,18,123,52],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natural-history","category-nature-reserves","tag-blackcap","tag-cettis-warbler","tag-chiffchaff","tag-garden-warbler","tag-peacock-butterfly","tag-speckled-wood","tag-whitethroat","tag-willow-warbler","tag-wraysbury-lakes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}