Autumn Cleaning

Finally got out into the garden to clean up some of the Autumn mess. Mainly walnuts, which we have had a bumper crop of this year. It has been very wet, so most of them split open and are starting to germinate. Even so, I think we easily collected as many as previous years.

Swept up all the mess (those walnut fruits turn into a very slipery, slimey black mess) and raked them out of the lawn. Took advantage of the wet to wash the path clean of this gunge with the yard broom. Cleaned out all the gutters too. Now awaiting the walnut leaves to fall, which will no doubt happen in the next few weeks.

Garden Neglect

I have to confess the garden is in a bit of a state at the moment. It was all under control until we went away for a couple of weeks in August, but due to the wet weather while we were away, we returned to a bit of a jungle. We haven't had time to get out and sort it either. Now the evenings are getting dark, it looks like we will be digging out all the weeds once they die back over the Winter.

The walnuts have started to fall now, so the garden is pretty much going to look a mess until after the Autumn leaf fall is over. Even the birds appear to have almost deserted us, with the ample supplies of natural food in the countryside at this time of year. What we need is a good fall of snow to make it all look clean and tidy!

The main project for the Winter is to sort out the bird boxes so they are weathered in ready for next Spring.

Crocosmia Flower Buds

I took this picture because I loved the shape and rich colour of these buds on the crocosmia we planted last year. These plants have grown about 5 feet high from the 2 ft high plant we bought, and there are three seperate flower stalks forming. The flowers will be bright red when they open.


Crocosmia Flower Buds

Blackbird Taking Mealworms

The pair of blackbirds who nested in our hedge have been busy feeding their young. They nag at us to bring out mealworms when we come into the garden, and will come and take them from the bird table while I am still stood there having just put them out. This picture is a frame taken from a video clip I took. The male blackbird has filled his beak to overflowing with mealworms, and is about to fly up the garden to feed them to the young.


Blackbird Taking Mealworms

Clematis Flowering Much Better This Year

After 3 years, our clematis 'Nelly Moser' has flowered well for the first time. Previous years it has only managed to put out a couple of flowers. This year it is covered in them.


Clematis 'Nelly Moser'

Song Thrush Singing

This morning as I was nipping up the garden to open the greenhouse vent, I could hear a bird song that I did not recognise as one we regularly hear in the garden. Closer inspection of the large walnut tree with the binoculars identified the source as a Song Thrush. This is the first one I have seen in the garden for over a year. A welcome sight, and a new species to record in our garden bird survey data

Blackbird Fledges

We saw our baby blackbird out of the nest for the first time this weekend. The parents were flitting to and fro bringing food to it. The local cat took an unhealthy interest, but hopefully the baby bird will quickly learn to recognise this danger without coming to any harm.

The robin has discovered the meal worms bin in the workshop too. we caught it flying in the door to pick one out. The door in not normally open, so this is not really a problem. The blackbirds still wait for me to put some out for them on the bird table. The robin has also realised that there are meal worms in the window feeder on the kitchen window, and the worms I put in there disappear each day now. We have also seen blue tits coming to the window feeder for sunflower seeds. It has taken a couple of months for this feeder to start getting regular visitors, and they still try to visit when nobody is in the kitchen to see them. We are hoping as they get used to it they will start to visit when we are sat inside eating our breakfast.

Nest Boxes in Use

We saw a lot of nesting activity around the garden over the weekend. A pair of blue tits are busy building a nest in one of the nestboxes I put up last year, and a great tit was seen taking dried grass or something similar into another of the nest boxes. We haven't seen any activity around that second nestbox since though. A pair of blackbirds have built a nest in the hedge near the house too, and I suspect another pair are building one in a bush near the pond (but I have not confirmed that yet as I did not want to disturb them).

In fact the only place there appears to be no activity is in the nestbox I fitted with a camera! Maybe it is facing the wrong way, or maybe it is still too new? I'll wait a bit longer and if nobody has moved in, I might try moving it round to the other side of the tree. It gets the early morning sun where it is now, but also gets the sun for most of the day. The walnut tree will shade it from the midday and afternoon sun once the leaves come out, but I don't know if the birds realise that.

The frogspawn has fully hatched now, so the pond is full of tadpoles. This is the first year I have definitely seen the spawn hatch properly, so maybe my shallow area was exactly what they needed? I also saw a few butterflies and bees around the garden. A Brimstone, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, and a Peacock butterfly were all spotted.

Activity in the Garden

I finally got to spend a day in the garden this year! WE have been so busy working inside the house, that the garden has been sorely neglected this year. Finally with the front room renovation finished, and a long Easter weekend at home, the garden saw some work.

The weather was great on Monday, and the birds were very active around the nestboxes. We saw a blue tit hammering away inside one box, and a Great Tit taking twigs into another. Of course neither of these are the box I have fitted a camera into! I have now got the computer set up to record images from the birdbox camera, so we can only wait now. Meanwhile, here are some pictures of Spring in our garden.


Garden View

The blackthorn blossom is out

The frogspawn is coming along nicely this year

Picture of Pond and Frogspawn

The pond with emergency shallow area for frogspawn! I basically used the old plastic waterfall thing which we inherited with the pond, and put it on top of a rock that I sunk in the pond to support it close to the water surface.

Some of this year's frogspawn, and (inset) one of the frogs.

Frog Spawn Arrives

Ah, the joys of Spring. Monday morning saw me frantically trying to create a shallow area in our far from ideal garden pond to stop all the frg spawn which appeared over the weekend from sinking into the depths. I learned recently that this kills frog spawn, and our pond has a constant depth over the entire area of about 0.4 metres.

An idea wildlife pond should have variable depth, with shallows and a deepest point of around 0.75 metres. This provides a range of habitats required to support all the life in the pond. The deeper water is important, as is the total volume because the temperature varies too much in a small shallow pond. Hot Summer days will heat up the water too much, starving the water of oxygen. This makes the pond water go green and kills the animal life. There should also be easy ways in and out of the water for wildlife, and good cover around the pond.

Unfortunately our pond fails on all these points! I have plans to make a much better pond, but that project has yet to start.

Deluxe Bird Box with CCTV Installed

I managed to put up the new bird box with a miniature colour video camera fitted, just in time for the cold snap that brought some rare snow to the garden. The cold weather has certainly brought the birds flocking to the feeding station. I've not been able to check the camera since I put it up about 2 weeks ago because I do not have enough cable to reach the TV in the house yet! The distance is around 40 metres, and with a low quality cable the sound was completely obscured by noise interference. I've ordered some higher quality cable that I hope to fit at the weekend.

Building Bird Nest Boxes

The past few evenings have been occupied building some new nest boxes for the garden. Last year we had a pair of Great Tits successfully rear seven babies in one of our nest boxes. That nest box is looking a bit worse for wear now, so I am planning to replace it with a brand new one made from 12mm plywood and fitted with a miniature colour video camera, so we can monitor progress on the TV in the house.

I have also build a Sparrow Terrace nest box in the hope that the house sparrows will find it to their liking. I got the plans for both nest boxes from the Beautiful Britain website.

Garden Birdwatch Update

We are now 3 weeks into recording the birds we see in our garden as part of the BTO Garden Birdwatch project, and we have already observed 14 different species. There are a few of the common species we have seen in the past that we have not yet seen this year, but I'm sure they will turn up before the Winter is over.

Our bird species list so far:
Blackbird
Blue Tit
Chaffinch
Coal Tit
Collared Dove
Dunnock
Great Tit
Greenfinch
House Sparrow
Jay
Long-tailed Tit
Robin
Starling
Woodpigeon

First Snowdrops

The snowdrops are starting to come up too. Not many yet, but they are very early like the aconites. See here for planting tips.

More Early Flowers

These Winter Aconites are normally the first flowers of the year to come up, but this year they really are early. More information on this plant can be found here.

Garden Birdwatch

This year we have joined the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) Garden Birdwatch project. The information pack arrived this week, so we are starting to record the birds visiting our feeders each day over breakfast. Excellent relaxation before heading off to work. On the first day I counted 10 different species. We have been providing regular food for the birds over the past couple of years, so we have established a good number of regulars. Now we are trying to increase the number of species we attract by providing a wider variety of food.

Currently we provide water via a bird bath and a pond, seed mix enriched with extra sunflower seeds, peanuts, nyger seed and fat cakes (home made containing mixed fruit and crushed peanuts). We are planning to provide regular live food this year after trials with some meal worms last Spring. We estabished a breeding colony of meal worms over the Winter, and they are nearly big enough now to be put out for the birds. I should mention Robyn's Mealworm Page where I found the information I was looking for on how to breed mealworms.

First Primrose of Spring 2005

It looks a bit ragged, but I was surprised to see a Spring flower at all in the garden so early. Growing in what is supposed to be a bog garden next to the pond, except it dries out too easily in the Summer as it is higher than the pond. Something that I will need to sort out when this whole pond area get's a make-over.

Start of a New Year

I'm starting a new blog for the New Year, to record the changes in our garden here in the fens. I went out on New Year's eve, and found the first primrose in flower. Rather early for the Spring flowers, but that just shows you how mild the Winter has been around here! I took a photo, which I'll post to the diary shortly.