Mammals, reptiles and insects take over

This has been a really quiet week for birds with just an avocet on Dowlais early on to give variety. However other creatures have stepped up to the plate in force despite the cold winds

First up was this Common Seal just offshore at Dowlais one morning. A patient wait for the tide let me improve from the first snatched video, to a couple of much closer views

The seal seemed happy catching crabs and smallish fish, as far as I could tell

It is only about once every 5 years that Seals come this far up the channel to visit Clevedon in my experience.


The other really uncommon sighting, for me at least, came while I was looking for butterflies. Because of the cold wind I had only ventured a few hundred yards from home to the side of the Blind Yeo. My hope was that a rarely used fisherman's car park might have enough flowers to attract a small copper or an early common blue as it is quite sheltered.

While creeping around I heard a rustle beside a pile of wrapped up wood and was astonished to see the tail of a snake disappearing under the pile. Standing quietly I then noticed that the head had emerged and was actually heading for the tail, which was bizarre

A few more minutes frozen to the spot and then the head came out from the dense vegetation. I had time for one photograph before it scented me (probably my socks) and disappeared back into hiding

The last grass snake that I saw in England was in my compost bin many years ago but, hopefully I won't have such a long wait next time.

The cold has not encouraged insects but I noticed a couple of red admiral butterflies flying North past Dowlais one lunchtime and that same afternoon one visited the garden briefly.

This green veined white perched up nicely too

But the star for me was Brown Argus starting to emerge up at Walton Common

This trip and one to Weston Moor, (both are in the Gordano Valley on the North side of Clevedon) also gave me many views of Hairy Dragonflies. Unfortunately not one would pause for its picture.

Instead here are some images of large red damselflies and azure damselflies from Weston Moor, I expect to get much better pictures of these as the season progresses but it was great to see them again after a long winter

My final picture this week is of a puss moth that was sitting, apparently exhausted, next to my pond one day.

I moved it indoors with some sprigs of sallow in the hope that it will both be a female and lay some eggs. The caterpillars of puss moths are quite remarkable and we used to rear them when possible to teach my daughters about wildlife back when they were young.