Goat Willow

 There are a confusing number of willow species about and we have a few of them in our bog meadow. My attention was drawn to the willow trees this week by the arrival of catkins on the goat willow.

It doesn't make the identification of willow trees any easier when the same species of tree often goes by a number of different names. Goat willow also goes by the name of "sallow" and sometimes "pussy willow" because the male  catkins are said to resemble cat's paws. The best indicator when looking at willow is the shape of the leaves so this is the worst time of the year to be identifying them. I am confident that we have  goat willow and weeping willow and possibly some other species too. If all that wasn't difficult enough it is possible to get hybrids between the various kinds.

Goat willow are dioecious. This means that separate trees carry either male or female flowers. (From the Greek meaning two houses ).  You might remember that this is in contrast to the Hazel that I covered earlier this month which is monoecious (male and female flowers on the same tree).

This week the male catkins are in flower on the male trees.


Goat Willow bark is also characteristic.

The willow genus is Salix. This is from the Latin "to spring forth". About 10 years ago I cut some wands of willow from a tree near us and simply stuck these wands into the wet earth in our bog meadow. From these cuttings life has "sprung forth" and some of these trees are well established and one is 8m tall.

Diary 
We had at least four visits from the female sparrowhawk today. Most of her swoops appear to be unsuccessful but we did witness a successful strike when she took a great tit. The technique seems to be to chase they prey around if the first strike misses. I set my trail cams in the garden to try to capture some video footage but she managed to evade me. I wonder where the male is hunting as we don't see him in the garden.
I have two nest boxes rigged up with cameras. The monitor is not switched on all the time so I don't know what species has started to nest build in one of them. I will be watching this carefully inn the next few days. This box was used by a blue tits in the past so this is my top suspect.

I had a short hunt for bats last night and there was a lot of activity along the line of the lane next to the house. Here is a screen shot of my results.

PIPPIP is the common pipistrelle and PIPPYG is the soprano Pipistrelle. These were just after sunset at around 1900 hrs.










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