first of the year

the first early purple orchid of the year in amongst the fading daffodils at the entrance to Duchy College.

another occasional find 2

white alkanet

This is a rare variant of green alkanet (which is blue of course), but an example appears most years in the same spot in a little lane nearby.

bullfinch

a bullfinch, a very occasional visitor to the niger seeds, with a goldfinch on the other side, spotted and described by Charlie Price aged 4yrs and 11 months. Well done Charlie!

at Treven farm

the blue season is almost upon us. The top picture is of greater periwinkle (vinca major). In the bottom picture is some green alkanet with the very vivid blue flowers with white eyelets, and around it the mat of prostrate stems and the small flowers of lesser periwinkle (vinca minor). The lesser vinca is a good flower for Easter as it "hath an excellent virtue to staunch bleeding at the nose in Christians if made into a garland and hung about the neck". (Not clear what non believers and infidels were to do). A further reference (Nicholas Culpeper) stated that "Venus owns this herb and saith that the leaves eaten by Man and Wife together cause love between them". Neither periwinkle is native to Britain

nesting

It has been fascinating to watch the great tits set about building the nest from scratch. The nest is constructed mainly of spaghnum moss brought in strand by strand with some downy feathers and hair or wool. Although the nest looks woven it is actually made by pushing the strands to the side. As the volume builds up the central concave part of the nest appears simply because it is where the birds sit to push the moss towards the sides. The male spends a large part of his time in the nest box pecking fiercely at the wood around the entrance (as above). It doesn't appear to be making the entrance larger but possibly it is making it smoother. They only have one brood a year so success is absolutely critical to each bird and hence they go to a lot of time and effort to make the nest secure and secret. I think they would both be deeply shocked if they knew how closely they were being watched deep in their own home.

No idea

another unidentified flying object. We have a lot of goldfinches in the garden but this does not look like the typical juvenile goldfinch. In fact it doesn't look like anything, especially from the front. Can anyone help with identification? A greenfinch?

PS now that I have had time to look at some decent photos on Wildabout Britain (link) it is clear that this a greenfinch.