Tree Following 2: Silver Birch

This post is the second in my Tree Following series, part of a wider project run from the Loose and Leafy blog. 

Since my last 'Tree Following' post I have another bird to add to the list, namely the Starling. The bird visited the feeder on 9 March, missing my first bulletin by two days. It returned on 14 March with a mate. The Great Spotted Woodpecker has only been seen once this month.

Starling and Robin onSilver Birch feeder

I am not sure what variety of Silver Birch I am following. What I do know is that these trees are considered a good choice for small spaces between houses because their root systems rarely interfere with foundations. I recall a song we used to sing round the camp fire at my Brownie pack meetings in about 1970. It was about North America and ran thus,

'Land of the silver birch, home of the beaver,
where still the mighty moose wanders at will ...'

I was surprised to discover much later on that the Silver Birch is also one of our British native species. The Silver Birch is monoecious, meaning that it has male and female flowers (aka catkins) on the same tree. I will hope to post photos of these in due course.

Base of the Silver Birch

And now for a couple of diary entries.

Diary entry for Monday 17 March
I was 'tree watching' when a Blue tit landed under the branches of the Silver Birch in front of me. It pecked around in the soft grass and moss for a moment, and soon its bill emerged full of a large bundle of nesting material. It flew up to the tree, by-passing the coconut halves, and landed on the circular feeder. I was expecting the bird to take the nesting material into the feeder through one of the Blue tit-sized holes, but instead it allowed its nesting material to drop to the ground and began instead to feed off a fatball inside the feeder.

Diary entry for Wednesday 26 March
Was it only yesterday on my blog that I commented on the spring weather, contrasting it with a year ago when the garden was covered in a blanket of snow? Well, this morning put paid to my optimism. A wintry shower arrived out of a sombre sky, sprinkling the undergrowth at the base of the Silver Birch with a dusting of hail. The feisty Robin was the first bird to alight on and flutter around the coconut feeder, and for a few moments it felt like Christmas.

26 March: a sprinkling of hail around the foot of the tree ...

Hailstones

This is my round-up of species seen so far (on, in, under, over or around the Silver Birch):

Birds

TFb1:   Great Spotted Woodpecker [March]
TFb2:   Great tit [March]
TFb3:   Long-tailed tit [March]
TFb4:   Blackbird [March]
TFb5:   Song Thrush [March]
TFb6:   Blue tit [March]
TFb7:   Robin [March]
TFb8:   Magpie [March]
TFb9:   Wood Pigeon [March]
TFb10: Dunnock [March]
TFb11: Starling [April]

Insects

TFi1: Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly [March]
TFi2: Buff-tailed Bumblebee [March] 
TFi3: Brimstone Butterfly [April]
TFi4: 7-spot Ladybirds [April]

Molluscs

TFm1: Brown-Lipped Snail  [March]

Flora

TFf1: Snowdrops [March]
TFf2: Daisy [March]
TFf3: Dandelion [March]

Butterflies and Moths (7): Caterpillars - fur, hair and bristles!

The Peacock (or possibly Small Tortoiseshell?) caterpillars above
were spotted on nettles
beside the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path in August 2009.

These furry things above are the barbed hairs of the caterpillars
of the native Brown-Tail Moth (Euproctis Chrysorrhoea).
We saw them at Spurn Point, Yorkshire, in April 2009.

Our car park ticket informed us that the adults
emerge in spring from their white webs
to feed on Sea Buckthorn.
Apparently they shed their skins,
releasing the hairs before pupating and taking wing.

Early September 2009:
we watched this Fox Moth caterpillar crawling about on Raasay,
the small island between Skye and Applecross
on which Calum built his road.

You can see another furry caterpillar on the island
if you follow this link and scroll down.

I spotted this Fox Moth caterpillar (above)
at Hartland Point in Devon,
on 16 April 2010.

You might like to look at the Marsland Moth blog,
since Marsland is closeby,
on the Devon-Cornish border.

This caterpillar
(below, with detail above)
was much close to home,
at Oxwich on Gower.

I noticed it on 22 August 2009.
It is as yet unidentified!

P.S. 2012 ... a Fox Moth caterpillar?

The yellow and black creature below
only just qualifies for this post of hairy crawlers!
It is a Burnet Moth caterpillar
(and I plan to do a post on this moth soon).

I photographed the caterpillar
at Mwnt in Cardiganshire back in late May 2010.

A Knot Grass caterpillar (above and below)
on St Columba's fascinating inland island (photo here),
situated in the Snizort River on Skye.
The adult looks like this.

The caterpillar below was spotted way back on 5 August 2006
at the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Do take a look at Rosie's Vapourer moth over at Leaves 'n Bloom here.