Nature Notes: January 2026

A SOGGY, CHILLY START!

A big 'thank-you' to all who provided food, water and shelter during Storm Goretti's strong winds, rain, snow an ice at the start of the month, and subsequent storms and flooding towards the end, which prevented nature's usual provision for our fur/feathered/spikey/woolly kin. Significantly impacting wildlife around the country, it even drove a rare, weak puffin onto the beach at Hove, just 35 miles south. Thankfully, the gloomy and soggy aftermath in our village here has been pierced by pretty fungi and lichen, verdant green moss, split 'red' acorns, tuneful birdsong and hopeful drifts of snowdrops and daffodils pushing their way through the sodden soil.

Other January Highlights: a cormorant emerging from the base of a small but gushing waterfall, the day after it was clad in a curtain of icicles; the full wolf super-moon; ice crystal paths sparkling in the sunshine; close up sightings of goldcrests in the bare hedgerows; long-tailed tits, goldfinches, bramblings, fieldfares and song thrushes in higher bushes and trees; the infamous black pheasant making an appearance at Theale (perhaps in memory of Gay); freshly dug badger and fox earths after the floods; a heron 'sunbathing'; mornings of mist slowly burnt away by the rising sun; the varied patterns, textures and hues of tree bark; finding familiar outlines - a penguin and Mary, Mother of God, in the swirls of an ice puddle!

Lowlights: A buzzard dropping a wood pigeon from the air which died near my feet; more hedge-cutting destroying vital homes and shelter on the eve of the coldest night of the year; robins still bobbing in and out of low hedges backing legend that the height of their perch foretells the weather - "If the robin sings in the bush then the weather will be coarse, but if the robing sings on the barn, then the weather will be warm"; a report by the 'Joint Intelligence Committee' eventually published by DEFRA concluding that the decline in the health of nature around the world poses a real threat to the UK's security.

Things to look forward to in February: Life, light and love! Spring unravelling; green shoots of wild garlic and bluebells; animals giving birth; frogs and toads migrating; on 28th, a rare alignment will make Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, and Neptune visible in a line at the same time.

What you can do:

1) Call for a televised national emergency briefing on the climate and nature crisis

2) National Nestbox Week runs from 14th -21st February and it's not too late to put up a nestbox for those garden birds who are still courting/'looking for love'. Visit nestbox week for helpful information as well as purchasing homes for hedgehogs, dormice and bats.

3) Join a Toad Patrol

4) Celebrate the South Downs National Park's 10th anniversary designation as an International Dark Sky Reserve by attending their Dark Skies Festival (Thurs 12th - Sun 22nd Feb 2026) where you can learn all about the stars and how to care for our nocturnal wildlife.