Natural Highlights 2025
TL;DR – Welcome to my annual roundup of nature sightings and happenings. These are really just diary notes as a record for me and Mrs Sciencebase.
January
Cottenham – Two Mistle Thrush on our mistletoe, pair of Coal Tit on the pyracantha. By late spring the Rowan hosting the mistletoe had died and the mistletoe with it, unfortunately. Hoping to dig it out in September and replace it with an apple tree.
RSPB Ouse Fen Earith – Huge Starling murmurations (several hundred thousand birds) and lots of Bearded Tits, Black-tailed Godwit (73).
RSPB Sandwell – Rose-ringed Parakeets, rats, fox, 17th Jan
Lackford Lakes – Nuthatch, Marsh Tit etc
Long Drove, Cottenham – possibly leucistic Great Black-backed Gull
Paxton Pits – Goldcrest (3-4) and Bullfinch (2)
February
Tenerife – volcano, pilot whales and spotted dolphins, canaries, chiffchaffs, pipits and warblers, whimbrels, monarch butterfly, lizards.
RSPB Earith – 22nd February – Barn Owl and Shortie
March
Broad Lane, Cottenham – Early in the month, Barn Owls, two possibly three.
Floods beyond River Delph, Earith – Couple of hundred Black-tailed Godwit
Cottenham – First couple of dollops of frogspawn in the pond overnight 5/6th. Lots of tadpoles a couple of weeks later, still thriving and writhing as of 6th April.
April
Les King Wood – First Speckled Wood of the year 6th April. Butterfly list for 2025 here.
Church Lane, Cottenham – Heard first Turtle Dove of the year and discovered Green Hairstreak
Very close Bittern flyby, RSPB Berry Fen
First two Swifts of the year over our Cottenham house – 29th April
May
Dartford Warblers – 10x Westleton Heath
6x Bittern showing all at once RSPB Ouse Fen, Earith, and others around.
~40 Hobbies at RSPB Ouse Fen, Over
First ever Goat Moth noted in the garden – 23rd May
Grass Snake – RSPB Ouse Fen, Earith, 23rd May
A solitary Stinking Iris blooms in the garden, foxgloves finally coming through too – 25th May
June
Large number of Dark Green Fritillary at Devil’s Dyke, at least a couple of dozen, 16th June
Two Scarlet Tiger to synergetic Heath trap in garden – 18th June
Walmer, Kent – Our first Heath Fritillary, too many to count, at Blean Woods
August
Stiffkey and Titchwell – 18-21 August Usual Curlew, godwits, sanderlings etc. Definite Wall butterfly at Titchwell
Trallong – 23-25 August – Usual low-flying Red Kite, Dipper, Grey Wagtail
Early morning, 30th August, at home, went to the garden moth trap and a large moth fluttered out, I thought it had gone. Didn’t have my glasses on but saw it hanging on the white sheet behind the trap, assumed Pine Hawk-moth, potted it, went back to bed. When I came to sort trap out later, realised what I’d potted was the rather scarce in the UK Striped Hawk-moth! Even had someone come to the house later in the day to photograph, it’s that special.
September
RSPB Snettisham – 12 September, early morning flying visit for Wader Spectacular, which began 08h30 onwards. Got shot of Peregrine with Knot prey in its talons. 13 Spoonbills heading west as we got back from a brief sojourn to the east of Snettisham.
Skala Kallonis, wildlife photos here: Lesvos – 14-21 September – Only flying Hoopoe, lots of Bee-eater, lots of Greater Flamingo, Dalmation Pelican, Short-toed Snake Eagle, Crested Lark, White Stork, and more. Non-wildlife photos here.
October
Nice to see so many Great White Egret at RSPB Fen Drayton (26th October) and to get a few snaps of one of them close to Coucher Hide fishing and feeding. 27th at Milton Country Park, numerous flying Kingfisher and some dodgy photos of one or two perched.
November
Half a dozen Clouded Yellow on the set-aside, which is flanked by the Ouse Fen to Earith footpath adjacent to the RSPB reserve, the CY Field. 2nd November seems very late for this migrant species to be nectaring still. Makes me wonder whether they’re actually naturalised on this patch as there were a couple of dozen here in the summer of 2022, an irruption year.
December
Saw my first Firecrest in a garden in Over, got a half-decent shot on 2nd December 2025. At least one Firecrest still there 22nd.
Numerous Shovelers flying overhead at Earith, quite astonished to see that they have a disc-shaped bill, it’s not obvious from the usual sideview when they’re feeding in the water and a little bit like the bill of the Spoonbill.
Finishing the year with a nice flourish, downloading photos from my new trail cam (Xmas present from Mrs Sb) discovered it had picked up a fox in the garden, night of 29th December!