Dedham Vale AONB & Stour Valley Project
SV path landscape cut

January

  • Hazel catkins in flower
  • Wild snowdrops
  • Look out for winter waders at Cattawade, which include:
  • Greylag geese
  • Wigeon
  • Teal
  • Grey plover
  • Dunlin
  • Black tailed godwit

February

  • Skylarks start to sing
  • Elms are in flower
  • Lambs born

March

  • Lesser celandine in flower
  • First primroses
  • Holly blue butterflies in flight
  • Brimstone butterflies in flight
  • Nightingale and yellowhammer birds arrive in Britain.
  • Sugarbeet and onions planted in the fields
  • Toads on the move
  • Black poplar catkins in flower
  • Hares boxing in fields

April

  • Blackthorn in flower
  • Frogs/ toads and newts spawn
  • Chiff chaff starts to sing
  • Cowslips and oxslips in flower
  • Badger cubs emerge

May

  • Hawthorn in flower
  • Bluebells
  • Common blue butterfly in flight

June

  • Oil seed rape harvest
  • Oxeye daisies out
  • Sulphur clover in flower
  • Bee and pyramidal orchids in flower on roadside nature reserves
  • Look out for signs of water voles and otters along waterway

July

  • Barley, wheat and onions harvested
  • Late July (purple loosestrife)
  • Bats flying
  • Lesser calamint in flower on roadside nature reserves
  • Look out for lizards sunning themselves
  • Stag beetles in flight on warm evenings

August

Most butterflies are seen this month. Look out for:

  • Common blue
  • Meadow brown
  • Small skippers
  • Small tortoiseshell
  • Peacock
  • Comma
  • Red admiral

September

  • Onion harvest ends
  • Sugarbeet lifting commences
  • Look for signs of dormice in woods and hedges – check for hazelnuts and summer nests

October

  • Hedgehogs hibernate
  • Beetroot harvest commences

November

  • Beetroot harvest ends

December

  • Look out for winter waders at Cattawade to include:
  • Black headed gull
  • Lapwing
  • Knot