My first walk round the pond - week 13

My original plan was to walk round the pond once a week from April to October this year, mostly looking for dragonflies, and to put a weekly report on this blog.  But then I also registered the walk as a BeeWalk with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.  Their bee walks start in March so I went a bit earlier.  The protocol demands a fixed route of 1-2km to be covered in about an hour each month, recording all the bumblebees seen in a 4m square imaginary box in front of the observer.  I have seen lots of bumblebees at the pond in previous years, mainly red-tailed bumblebees (Bombus lapidarius) as far as I remember.

This was the first time I have been this early in the year so it was interesting to look around.   There are two ponds on the site, small and large.  Here is a buzzard's eye view taken in summer.

This is the view from the far end, beyond the smaller pond.

I chose a calm sunny day with a temperature of 9℃ but I didn't see any bumblebees (negative findings are also important).  After our fairly cold winter and early spring I expect the bumblebees are having a lie-in as I haven't see one yet at home either.  There weren't many flowers around for any bees.  I did see plenty of coltsfoot and a few gorse bushes.  I am not very good at naming wild flowers so this will be an opportunity to learn more about them.

The alder trees were in flower but they are wind pollenated so they don't need bees.  These are the male catkins (with the female flowers above)

and these are the female flowers which will produce the cones later in the year.

Hazel trees were also in flower.  These are the catkins (again with the female flowers above)

and these are the tiny red female flowers.

You can see they have already picked up some wind-blown pollen.

A pair of mute swans has built a nest in the smaller pond but there are no eggs as yet.  Swans have nested here in previous years.  Last year the female was dead the first time I visited and the male was swimming around sadly but had gone by my next visit.

Here is the nest in the reeds, front left, taken on the iPhone as my camera had a telephoto lens.

There was pair of Canada geese on the larger pond.  They also have nested here before and a pair raised five goslings here last year.  I didn't see whether these two have yet built a nest.

Other birds I saw included buzzard, bullfinch, chaffinch, little grebe and long-tailed tit.

There was lots of frogspawn in the larger pond but no frogs.  I guess the frogs have been and gone and have nothing else to do for the rest of the year apart from eating and avoiding being eaten.

Assuming I get there and there is something to see I plan to post here each week until week 43.