Orchids

Cambridge Botanic Gardens had a great display of Orchids in the corridor of the glasshouses when we visited last week. These are in-camera composites that remind me the delight of these amazing flowers amid the light and the textures around them.

Peregrine St Albans Cathedral

Great to record the Peregrine falcon hopefully nesting on St Albans Cathedral - rather distant but unmistakable! The lakeside birds are all getting ready for breeding with many squabbles and displays.

Herons Nest Building

We spent a very enjoyable hour or so watching Herons collecting nest materials.They were collecting both from the trees themselves - mainly willow - and from the ground and often seemed satisfied with even a quite small twig though they returned fairly quickly then to collect another!

Toft Barn Owls

For several nights, I have observed a Barn Owl coming out of the field next to our garden at around 18.15 so last night I took a camera and spent time tracking it around the field by the Hardwick Road and was delighted to see it joined by a second Barn Owl though by then it was too dark to get any type of quality image.

Stinking Hellebore and Garden Birds

I was really pleased to find a colony of Stinking Hellebore, Helleborus foetidus, on the old railway embankment in Toft. This is a short-lived perennial herb of shallow calcareous soils. It is a poor competitor, and intolerant of deep shade, so is usually found in small colonies in woodland glades or open scrub, on scree slopes, rock ledges, hedgebanks etc. There are other plants of the species around Toft but I have not found new colonies before. 

With the cold weather, our garden is hosting lots of Goldfinches, Greenfinches, Blue Tits feeding on the old seedheads and the provided sunflower seeds.