What To Look For In February 2024
Secret lakes, dozy ladybirds, Elf Cups, Snowdrops and Ivy, and the return of Lapwings and Curlews.
A guide to the wildlife to look out for hereabouts, around February time. Thanks to members of Sorby Natural History Society, the RSPB Sheffield Group, Sheffield Bird Study Group, and Sheffield Museums for their expertise, and to the many brilliant photographers who’ve contributed. (As usual, now we’re a year old, this is a seasonal update version of last year’s post).
It’s been a mild February so far, and although spring is officially a month away, birds in particular don’t keep their eyes on calendar dates and have started singing as the mornings get lighter.
Ducks on city ponds are in their fancy courting colours, and the birds who’ve wintered here know they need to get started right now if they want to raise a brood (or two) of chicks before the end of summer. So as well as glutinous fungi, sociable ladybirds and late winter plant happenings, this is a post of birdlife, including an almost secret and unlikely place to seek them out.
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Eastern Lakes
Now’s a good time to explore the wild lakes of our border country. Contributor and wildlife photographer Bob Croxton visits the wetlands between Sheffield and Rotherham regularly and tells me birds on Catcliffe Flash and Treeton Dyke have been recorded by ornithologists for 50 years. Nearby, Orgreave Lake(s), on the site of the former Orgreave miner’s strike battles, has now been given the grand Canadian- style title of Lake Waverley, to sit with the new township growing near its shoreline.
The careful monthly species recording by Bob and colleagues has listed around 40 types of water bird, and I understand migrants following the River Rother often land up here, with occasional rarities like the Great Northern Diver of a few months ago.
Bob says changing recreational activities have affected bird numbers: in the 1970s shooting by poachers sent plenty of ducks to Rotherham dinner plates, while now water skiing at Treeton causes alarm for waterfowl, along with paddle boarding and wild swimming, a contrast to fifty years ago when shotgun pellets were flying about more than Goldeneye, Grebes and Goosander.
Our Great Eastern Lakes are easily accessible, and worth the 20 minute bus trip. X5 and X54 timetables are here, or you could even get the train to Woodhouse - the lakes are about 15-20 minutes walk away.
Ladybirds
You may still find huddles of ladybirds hiding from the winter in sheltered corners, like your cellar or garden shed. But during February, they should start to come out of their particular type of ‘diapause’ hibernation, a kind of suspended development.
They take advantage of our central heating to remain active for that little bit longer in early winter before their suspended development, and as things warm up outside, they’ll gradually become more lively again and begin their hunt for food and mates.
Elfcup fungus
Now’s the time to seek out the bright red fruiting body of the Elfcup fungus, which should be appearing in places like the Rivelin, Porter and Loxley Valleys, and other damp, dark woodlands (try also New Hall Wood at Stocksbridge).
Elfcups are usually found in damp, shady woods where they grow out of the moss on fallen twigs and branches. Two very similar species (Scarlet Elfcup and Ruby Elfcup) appear like splashes of red in dark woodlands before the first wild flowers appear, and were said in the past to be the cups where wood elves drank their morning dew.
Early Nesters
Some bird species, Blue Tits, for example, are already beginning to check out nesting sites and local nest boxes, and they might soon start collecting building material. There seems to be evidence suggesting that some birds are beginning their nesting season earlier due to climate change.
Ivy Berries
Ivy is an opportunist, Roger Butterfield of Sorby Natural History Society tells me, and by bursting out with berries just now, theoretically at the end of winter when food is scarce, birds snap up the berries and defecate ivy seeds all over the local trees and stonework so more ivy can grow in future years.
The plant comes in a few variants and colours, but as you may notice if you glance at any nearby urban wall or woodland, most are doing pretty well.
Returning Waders
Wading birds like Curlews are making their way back from the coast to their breeding grounds, on the moors above Sheffield, and across the Peak District.
In mild weather they like to get started for the year by looking for worms and grubs on wet moorland and farmland, but if there’s another cold snap they’ll head back to the Humber or thereabouts until it warms up again. They often congregate in flocks prior to the breeding season, where Lapwings and Oystercatchers will start to grow bold breeding plumage that’s irresistible to their prospective mates, they hope.
Snowdrops
Not really a native flower, Snowdrops were brought to Britain several hundred years ago, and were planted in country houses like Chatsworth and Clumber Park, and Brodsworth, Hardwick and Renishaw Halls, and they should arrive soon too in Crookes Valley Park and the Botanical Gardens, and many local churchyards.
You might see drifts of them along the roadside on some country lanes too, where they were either deliberately planted, or arrived as bulbs in fly-tipped garden waste, and they may also pop up as reminders of the winter work of gardeners of the past, in long-abandoned allotments.
Comings And Goings
Watch for geese in the skies, like Greylag Geese making their way over the city back to Iceland from their wintering grounds in Norfolk. Rare smaller birds crop up during winter migrations too: over the last few days a very rare Shore Lark has turned up among a Skylark flock near Bradfield.
Follow the up to date news on the Sheffield Bird Study Group recent sightings page.