Monday 18 March 2024

Catch ‘em young!

Day 271 #365DaysWild


Catch ‘em young!

My favourite little boy went around the garden with me in the rain using the Merlin app, identifying bird calls and songs.

‘What’s that one calling Poppa?’ He asked.

I couldn’t hear it. Roy Dennis remarked on the sad loss of the ability to hear bird song as he aged.. These days I struggle to hear redwings flying overhead. And treecreepers.

Before I could answer, up popped ‘Goldcrest’ on the app.

That’s another whose frequency is too high for me to register.

At home, our boy used daddy’s phone to ID garden birds and he sent me a list.




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These posts will be part of a family book I am writing for my grandchildren’s children and other family members of their generation.

What wildlife will be left by the time they grow up?

Sunday 17 March 2024

Defiant



Day 270 #365DaysWild

Yes. Raining again.

On mums 95th birthday.

Defiant wild daffodils. Now in flower in the damp edges of George’s Pond in the meadow.

A gift from my favourite uncle and aunt.


Nothing blousy or overstated. Not showy. Diminutive.

And very pretty.

Saturday 16 March 2024

staggeringly good ancient oaks..

Day 269 #365DaysWild

To Calke Abbey, Derbyshire.

Red and fallow deer in the park.

A flock of redwing in song. 

And the Abbey, a living set for Dickens Miss Haversham. No attempt to add gloss to a shabby ancient stately home that had disappeared under the clutter of generations. Such engaged and knowledgable volunteers to make the day fascinating.


But the wonderful veteran trees especially caught our imagination following our day at the Notts Biodiversity Action Group day on Wednesday. Some staggeringly good ancient oaks.

And glorious standing deadwood. Left by the National Trust. Not felled and removed as the tidy gardeners of the past may have thought necessary.

We need more dead and decaying trees and the wildlife that takes its life from such decay. Standing and horizontal dead and decaying trees. More for our too-frequently-overlooked saproxylic beetles.

Congratulations National Trust.

Friday 15 March 2024

Prunus incisa 'Kojo-no-mai'

Day 268 #365DaysWild


Another grey day! No rain yet!

A couple of greylags have landed. Warily from the raised prairie beds scanning the lawn. They’re not quite sure why they’re here or what they’re

supposed to be doing. They’re alert and uncertain. Perhaps it was their calling card I mistook for hedgehog poo?

Meanwhile, pretty Prunus incisa 'Kojo-no-mai' is in her full regalia. Near the door giving a cheery, cherry welcome for any visitor. A small, ornamental, always full of flower in the early spring.


Bees busy visiting her flowers.



Thursday 14 March 2024

Tiggywinkle..?

Day 267 #365DaysWild


Hedgehogs were once common.

As a kid, I recall my little Jack Russell terrier having played with a ‘tiggywinkle’ of garden hedgehog and coming into the house thick with fleas. 


We had regular visits from hogs here till 2019. I monitored their poo trail journey around the garden and recorded them on camera. Along with one of our student volunteers I set up hedgehog cafes. Emilia was French and so we opened a classy ‘Cafe du hérisson’. But since then, no single animal seen.


Had they been predated by badgers? Or poisoned by farmland insecticides? Killed on our busier and busier roads? Or another factor?

Deeply troubling how a local extinction can take place..

So perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself..

But this morning there appeared to be hedgehog poo in the meadow.

Straight away, the cafe reopened for business. Special hedgehog food. Cafe secured with bricks on the roof in case badgers of foxes try and help themselves.

And now to wait..

Wednesday 13 March 2024

Toad time

By torchlight, last night..

Chirruping and plopping in the pond.

Our toads are now busy with the next stage of their life cycle.


Males are grasping females in amplex. Three pairs last night. With luck there’ll soon be characteristic strings of spawn.



Blanda …

Day 266 #365DaysWild


A song thrush at the very top of one of our tallest conifers. At dusk. In full song.

And, in succession on what we call the ‘bulb bank’ in the Woodland Garden - cyclamen coum, winter aconites, snowdrops finish annd give way to anemone blanda.


It is so encouraging to see them seeding and spreading slowly.

This kind of natural, organic growth and development is one of the special pleasures and satisfactions of developing a garden.




Tuesday 12 March 2024

Turkey tails ..


Day 265 #365DaysWild

Splendid in the damp of the stumpery.

Fungus turkey tails in abundance on this log.






Monday 11 March 2024

Turbo-charged…

Day 264 #365DaysWild



Cold afternoon.

Pile of grass cuttings.

Let’s make compost.

Compost is an essential ingredient of a great organic garden.

We don’t use animal manures as it’s impossible to know whether aminopyralid herbicide has been included in the feed that the animal has digested. Unfortunately the herbicide passes through the animal and the resulting manure may be toxic to plants for several years.

Our compost is made entirely of plants or products derived from plants such as cardboard or paper (with a few crushed egg shells added. Plant-based kitchen waste goes in. 


It takes around a year to make what my old dad approvingly called ‘pure plant food’

Todays job was turning compost, adding cardboard and grass cuttings. By turning the compost into another of my pallett bays, air is incorporated which speeds the process. Fresh grass cuttings turbo charge the whole.


I use a compost thermometer to watch the temperature of the compost rocket to 70C.

Finished compost is added to the soil surface.

Compost is rich in invertebrate and fungal life. As a surface mulch there is no need to dig and so the soil ecology is undisturbed and more beneficial for plants.

Healthy soil produces healthy plants.




Sunday 10 March 2024

‘Bloody awful’

Day 263 #365DaysWild


The warmest February ever recorded.

Grey.

And wet too.

Unseasonably great growing weather and, my, has our lawn grown!

As a consequence our ‘lawn’ more-closely resembles rough grassland. Purists would throw their hands up in horror.

My first ‘mistake’ was to sow a grass and clover mix. Insects love it. But our farmer friend shook his head in bewilderment as he walked across it. ‘I can give you something to get rid of all this clover’ he offered.


Of course, it’s a place for footballs and picnics and tents. It’s a place for burrowing through a long wavy jungle..

I never scarify or weed & feed. The lawn is bouncy to walk on, so thick is the thatch of moss and dead grass. Hopefully a home to the detritivors at the base of the food chain..0

Islands of unmown grass to give our sparse crocus the chance to build up for next year. And then, controversially, an island of unmown grass to protect a field vole colony.


What!?!?

My poor old late dad would have thrown his hands up in horror at all my nonsense but especially this -encouraging voles to live in the lawn!!

If we want kestrels and tawny owls, we need a flourishing population of small mammals.

I asked mum what she thought of the lawn after I’d finished.

She answered ‘Bloody awful’.



Friday 8 March 2024

The mighty Norman ..

Day 262 #365DaysWild


Wetland Bird Surveys (WeBS) at the Mill Lakes, Bestwood Village, Nottinghamshire.


It is always a pleasure talking to Norman Hayes. Norman is now in his 83rd year but his relentless recording of bird numbers continues. His long, uninterrupted recording of the birds of Bestwood inspired the Friends of Bestwood Country Park to create its’ hugely  successful Wildlife Group. 

We chatted about his WeBS counts over the years.


Norman explaining the difference in the shapes
of elephants and mammoths backs ..

He’s done the WeBS at the Mill Lakes since the lakes were first formed in the 1970’s.


His WeBS records show several gradual but serious declines over the past twenty years.


In 1983, Norman recorded 23 little grebe. In 2023 this had fallen to five birds.

Ruddy duck are now extinct due to culling. His highest count of ruddy duck (formerly a breeding bird with us) was 26 birds in September 1991.

He’s seen a big decline in pochard. In 1999 he counted a peak of 26 birds but this year zero.

Shoveler reached 22 in the same year but now he records only single birds.

In December 1999 his highest count for teal was 49 and now the highest count is up to 20.

The current highest count for coot is 15 but in 1999 the highest count was 132.


Little egrets are now present. 

Greylag have increased with the highest count being 156 birds in October 2023. Greylag were unrecorded in Norman’s first years of counting.


A days birding with Norman and Ray Fox.
During his time birdwatching around the lakes he’s seen black swan and breeding heron. He noted four calling turtle doves at the Mill Lakes in June 1993. 

Marsh and willow tits bred here. Willow tits raised three young in July 2014. Hearing marsh warbler in song was a particular highlight.


Heron appear to be nesting with us again for the first time in years.


Norman’s unabated enthusiasm continues. As we sat reminiscing about his WeBS counts our conversation was suddenly interrupted as he spotted a pair of red-legged partridges on the lawn! 

✔️His first for the year.


Norman Hayes: a Nottinghamshire birding legend.


The Wildlife Group is currently working with the Rivers Trust and Severn Trent to monitor pollution in the River Leen and Mill Lakes.


Biodiversity round table

Day 261 #365DaysWild


A fascinating, wide-ranging discussion on Wednesday.



In partnership with Erin McDaid (Notts Wildlife Trust) and Scott Blance (Derbys Wildlife Trust) we’d gathered a group of Notts & Derbys keenest wildlife activists together to discuss what practical steps the soon-to-be-elected East Midlands Regional Mayor could take to support and promote biodiversity.


So much practical experience that could be harnessed by the new mayoral authority. 


I hope Claire Ward (The Labour Party candidate) found it helpful in understanding how complex and fundamental are the issues impacting biodiversity - and how these, in turn, are fundamental to the health & wellbeing of our communities and landscapes.


I’m sure I speak for everyone in saying that we hope that  the newly-elected mayor will embed nature and biodiversity at the heart of the raft of policies she will develop for the new authority.


This was a first discussion. I hope it can become a springboard for something really powerful in the future.

Thursday 7 March 2024

Stinky..?

Day260 #365DaysWild


It’s prospecting season.

Yesterday, stock doves were sizing up the garage gable nest box.

Today, a male kestrel was doing the same. 




So, there’s the possibility of a series of broods of stock doves in there.

Or kestrels, their young and the decomposing remains of their dinners and pellets …

My tiny granddaughter has gone through a stage in which she describes many things she doesn’t like as ‘stinky’.

Wait till she gets a nose-full of the garage fragrance in a hot summer..


Of course, it will be the female who makes the final decision..

Same as it ever was..

Wednesday 6 March 2024

The Barry White of the pigeon family? Here’s the love song of a stock dove...

Day259 #365DaysWild

The Barry White of the pigeon family? 
Here’s the love song of a stock dove.



Tuesday 5 March 2024

a big concrete mistake ..

Day258 #365DaysWild


I think I must now be up to ten ponds in the garden. All are filled with rain water.

They're places for drinking and bathing. 

Midges and their subsequent larvae congregate.

Some ponds are no bigger than old washing-up bowls.

George's Pond is a big boy with a diameter of twenty metres.

I converted a friends little vegetable garden beds (that were going to the tip) into mini-ponds.

This one is in the Woodland Garden and is snapshot from yesterday.



I bought a pond pump from the auctions and on collection found I'd bought a lump of concrete in the shape of a water pump painted black. What it lacked in quality it made up for in quantity. A huge heavy lump to get in and out of the car.

Part of the partnership felt that this rash purchase vindicated her concerns about my buying strategy.


I hid my mistake in the ivy that grows in the bulb bank in and put this little pond underneath it.

The birds don't seem to mind!

Here, wood pigeon, wren and male blackbird transitioned clunkily. What do expect - Spielberg?!