Fox with cub visited together 2 nights ago.
Nice views of woodpecker mother feeding junior. Arty photos of pigeon and sparrows.
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Birds very active. Juvenile woodpecker came down to bathe early in the morning, so photos taken in shadow, through double glazing: The pied wagtail has been a regular visitor, and today kept bringing beakfulls of insects to wash in the water. Presumably to moisten prior to feeding to nestlings. A blackbird was sunning itself on the log pile, having been busy eating all my almost-ripe cherries. I also saw a frog in the pond - a rare visitor. Gravel garden alive with butterflies - small tortoiseshells and an occasional meadow brown. The hummingbird hawkmoth was back, too. Frankenstein's tit (the weird looking one) seems to be regrowing its feathers. Just as well, poor thing.
Hummingbird Hawk Moth and mystery bird identified I sat in the gravel garden this morning with my camera, watching the butterflies, and wished that a Hummingbird Hawk moth would appear. Sure enough, one did! Right next to me. I nearly fell off my chair in amazement. Also today I heard back from an expert (Robin Chittenden) with the name for a bird I couldn't identify. It's a Whitethroat. It has been coming to bathe in the pond, but it skulks in the bushes looking just like a sparrow, then dashes out and straight into the water. By the time I have the camera up, it is soaking wet, and very hard to identify. I'm still hoping to get some dry photos of it one day. The fox has been coming for several nights, now, but I haven't seen the badger for about 2 weeks. Last night there was a lot of foxy interest in one of the hedgehogs. Doesn't seem to be a problem for the hedgehogs.
So many baby birds being fed today: The end of my pond looks like Blackpool beach on a bank holiday. A goldfinch posed nicely, and the post feeder was visited by a weird looking great tit. May have been fledging, or, more likely diseased in some way. A bit worrying.
Improved the post feeder. Now larger birds like starlings can land. Mixed blessing! The sunlight on it in the early morning and in the late evening is really good. Nice to see the woodpeckers using it, although they are there and gone again in a jiffy. I've already got some action photos of the starlings fighting, although the photography is not perfect (whites often blown). Must try harder! Saw my first cinnabar moth a few days ago, and another flew into the conservatory today. Managed a lousy photo of it just for the record. Waterlillies are blooming well in the pond.
Had fun today with my new bird feeder post. The robin is still the most obliging. It has also started coming into my conservatory to eat the dead flies on the floor! (We are having a major fly invasion in the village at the moment). The beach at my pond has a little water spout which the birds love:
Yesterday I put up a new feeding post hoping that I could photograph birds flying onto and off it. Today it was visited frequently by a robin, and once by a starling who knocked the tray off the top. It is now better secured. No other birds have noticed it yet.
Today I also saw my first speckled wood butterfly of this year - a rather tatty specimen. The area beside my greenhouse has a weedproof membrane with gravel on top. Over the years the gravel has filled with enough soil for many plants to grow. There is a honeysuckle hedge at one side, and the self-sown plants that I'm encouraging are insect-friendly natives such as valerian, purple loostrife and teasels. There is also a pink geranium, and an awful lot of herb robert, which seeds everywhere and I do have to control. I pull out grass and nettles and dock. I've only just started sorting it out these last few days, but there are a lot of flowers and butterflies and bees. Other good plants for bees and butterflies are Buddleias. The best known is Buddleia davidii, which will flower soon, but in flower at the moment are Buddleia alternifolia, and Buddleia globosa. Mine are doing really well, and alive with insects.
There have been visits to the pond "beach" by reed buntings and wagtails. Below: Female reedbunting bathing and male skulking in the long grass. A pied wagtail pair comes every evening and there has been an occasional visit from a grey wagtail. But I'm most delighted to see a yellow wagtail pair from time to time. They are summer visitors, and I've never seen one before. They are red-listed! Yellow wagtail : The jay comes to the feeders every day, and I managed to get some nice pics of it diving from the feeder to the grass below, chasing dropped bits of peanut:
I have various common species of birds that visit the garden: house sparrows, starlings, chaffinch, greenfinch, goldfinch, great tits, blue tits, long-tailed tits, wren and dunnocks. And of course, blackbirds, thrush and robin. Less common but regular and frequent are greater spotted woodpeckers, who are only interested in the peanut feeder. A jay visits the peanut feeder every day at the moment. I have seen a green woodpecker a few times but not for several years. They feed on ants in the grass. I wish they would return - there's no shortage of ants' nests.
Magpies, jackdaws and other corvids come usually at first light, and clean up under the bird feeders. As do pidgeons and collared doves. Occasional visitors in previous years include coal tits, marsh tit (once), tree sparrow (once), grey wagtail, bullfinch, spotted flycatcher (once), reed bunting, blackcap, whitethroat and various warblers which are hard to identify. A sparrowhawk visits quite often, and sometimes makes a kill. Managed to rig up a solar lamp at the feeding area. So feeble, I don't think it would have scared anything. In fact, it didn't. Trail cam caught two hedgehogs and a fox - may have been the fox cub - hard to judge size. The fox arrived while one of the hedgeohogs was pottering. It stayed still while the fox sniffed around, and for several minutes afterwards. Then carried on doing its stuff.
A few nights ago a little fox cub appeared in the garden. No sign of a mother, so must have been old enough to fend for itself. The next day it appeared in broad daylight - very unusual for a country fox. But my camera was handy and I got some good photos:
The avenue from my livingroom window to the end of the garden gives access to creatures who come in from the field. It is quite likely that they enter from other areas, too. Looking from the window. Looking back towards the house. I can place a trail cam on a tripod under the window, and retrieve it easily through the window. I throw some food out such as hedgehog pellets, dog buscuits, peanuts or household scraps (usually pizza crust). Hedgehogs, foxes and badgers come in the night to eat, and anything that's left is taken by the pidgeons and corvids as soon as day breaks. No mess remains. I would like to rig up a 'proper' camera with flash or good lighting, and get some photos of the badgers and foxes. I've set up a camera to be remotely controlled from my ipad, and managed to get a few flash photos the other night. Badgers don't seem to care about light or flashes, but the fox will be much more difficult. It often gets spooked by some light source on the trail cam.
Soon after I moved here, I had a pond dug. Unfortunately it was too shallow, and had a bog garden which I couldn't reach into to weed or sort out. The whole area became overgrown and unmanageable. In January this year a local firm, "Women With Waders", came and revamped it completely. The soil in Tadlow is pure gault clay - very heavy and sticky. They had to work in winter, as there had been Great-crested newts in the old pond, and winter is the time they go elsewhere, apparently. They rescued as much of the pond life as they could, including all the smooth newts, and "Women With Waders" also employ muscle: Three fit blokes did the digging. They had a hell of a time! But the end result was great:
Mine has been a wildlife garden for many years now, and since I developed an interest in wildlife photography, I've spent many happy hours photographing the wildlife in the garden. As my mobility has declined, I've decided to make my garden wildlife- and photographer- friendly. The old conservatory. The new conservatory. Two pairs of double doors give good camera angles over the whole garden. There were already french windows into the lounge, and when open they allow me to sit in my recliner armchair and see the pond, wildflower patch, and from the open window (not visable here) I have a good view of the cherry tree in which I hang my bird feeders.
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