As I mentioned in January’s patch post I have been given permission to make the landowners garden more ‘wildlife friendly’. Well I’ll be honest, it wont be too difficult to do! This is what the garden looked like in December…
As you can see it is plant-less more or less. There are some roses, and a pussy willow tree to the left with a bush beside it and a hazelnut tree to the right but other than that ‘weeds’ covers it for the vegetation, I guess weeds is a harsh term ‘plants that have not been chosen’ might be a better way of putting it. I raked through the dead plants and it was mainly grasses and crop that have crept through from the field and taken over the raised bed.
In January I marked out where the snowdrops have come up so I know not to dig them up once they have died back and also the cyclamen that I have identified. Now I don’t know a lot about gardening so it will be a new experience for me and the owner as he doesn’t know much either! The bird feeder was a new addition in December and the birds seem happy that their feed has been moved away from the windows. They seem to like that it is located near the tree and the bush. It does need to be put into a base rather than just the soil as high winds have blown it over on a couple of occasions. I plan to plant a shrub behind the feeder to give the birds even more cover to dart into if the sparrowhawk comes looking for lunch!
The first stage of the garden plan is cleaning and protecting the fence and moving the rose bushes back in the beds. I have also learnt that I need to prune the roses back harder! as a first attempt in December, apparently it wasn’t too bad. I pruned them a second time in February and have done a better job! I think I’ll be tuning into Monty Don and Gardener’s World on a Friday night for some advice!
Over Easter I spent a morning in the garden tidying, there was a lot of leaf litter that had been left decomposing over Winter. When I lifted it there were a lot of creatures scurrying around. Although a lot of it was removed I also used some of it at the base of a basic log pile I started to create. I have put it in an old wooden plant pot so it can be moved if necessary. There was a lot of rubbish in the garden and turning over a car mat I found a centipede (Cryptops parisi), I was quite excited as I have never found one before! I moved it to the log pile for safety.
There is a lot of work to do and I realise I might not get it all done this year but I do hope by the end of summer it will be a wildlife friendly habitat.
March 1st – So today it snowed! Work decided to send us all home, which to me was a great idea especially seeing when I got to the patch there was a fieldfare in the garden 🙂
March 2nd – Today I focused on the garden birds, mainly because the bird bath needed defrosting five times! The fieldfare had been joined by two others which meant I had to start strategically distributing the apple to keep them from fighting too much and wasting energy. There was plenty of apple to go round and they eventually all sat guarding their own piece. There were also three robin’s, I noticed that one has a ring. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take photos of it from enough angles to get a clear picture of the code. I don’t know if it was a resident or just visiting in the cold, but I will be keeping an eye out for it again. 
March 3rd – So I finally found out who lives in the holes in the field – rabbits! I spotted them over the garden fence, they stand out easier against the snow! I went out looking for snow tracks and discovered that four of the holes belong to bunnies. Its nice to know they are there even though I generally don’t see them. I guess it does explain the regular visits by the foxes seeing there is an abundance of food near the hedgerow. Each time I go out into the field I have been breaking the ice on the water troughs to give the larger mammals somewhere else to drink from. I was surprised to see a song thrush in the field on my way back, its the first one I have seen in this location, the fieldfare were also out defending their food. In the afternoon a brown rat started to appear at the base of the bird feeder. I know there are rats around here but I hadn’t seen one venture into the garden before. He would put his nose under the fence, have a look around, dart out, grab some food and dash back into the field. I don’t blame him seeing there were two cats roaming around. One of which does catch mice and leave them as ‘gifts’ especially in the summer! As I was watching the rat a red kite flew low over the house and away over the field.
March 13th – It was a sunny evening so I took the chance to take a short walk in the field. As soon as I walked through the gate I saw what I thought was a female pheasant in the distance, since then, looking at the image I’ve discovered it was a red legged partridge. The first one I am 100% I have seen there (February’s sighting was more of a guess). Walking along the top edge there were lots of roe deer and cat prints in the mud and the occasional clear fox print. There were 9 mute swans down in the dip at the bottom of the field, they were just about visible. I spotted a balloon in the field, so of course I had to collect it. I had to carefully tiptoe through the crop to untangle it from the plant it had wrapped itself around. At least it was away from the mute swans as I would have hated one of them to have got tangled in it. In the copse there was a lot of chattering, I think it was starlings but I couldn’t see any of them. It was lovely to just stop and listen to them. On the way back I noticed some red dead-nettle flowering near the gateway. 
February 24th – the trailcam was put out over night in the field, the plan was to try and find out what was using the holes in the field as home (I assume rabbits). Nothing came out of them, there were however a few visitors that passed by – fox, roe deer and possibly 2 badgers… or one that walked the same route a couple of times! 
February 25th – I decided seeing it was a sunny afternoon to head out in the field to look around. Now I don’t normally see any other humans at all, however it being a Sunday afternoon I saw three!! Which might explain why I saw less than the normal amount of wildlife! Note to self – only go on the weekend if its really early! Along the north hedge I saw more than normal (no other humans there!) 5 starlings, 2 house sparrow and a blue tit, there were other small birds flitting around but they were hard to see darting into the hedge so I can only assume they are more of the same. I know that there are tree sparrows in the area but I am yet to see any here. 
Walking along the river I saw 2 of the humans, 2 mute swans and I heard both a moorhen and robin. I still haven’t been able to have help to go and collect the litter, good news is its still there and hasn’t washed away! I’m still unsure if the ‘land’ its on is actually stable to stand on! 
Although the recent snowfall was only a couple of weeks ago, to be honest it feels like a lifetime ago! I headed out on the Saturday morning to look for snow tracks. I have a good idea what visits the field in the day and a fair idea of what wanders around after dark, but normally finding tracks other than roe deer is not easy. The snow however made it much easier 🙂 
Along the top edge of the field along with the cat! I found fox prints, it had been quite active during the night by the looks of it but I guess seeing I now know there are rabbits living along the hedgerow I can see why. It had been looking into the rabbit hole and it did look as though there had been a chase or at least a rabbit running in an arch. The rabbits had clearly marked their burrow entrances with urine! At least I now know for sure who the holes belong to! The only other tracks I found were pheasant, which seem to be spending time in this part of the field.
Instead of heading around the field I headed out into the next field along, I knew the mute swans were there and wanted to check on them. I also found roe deer, rabbit, brown hare, fox and badger prints 🙂 All the four legged mammals that I have seen in my patch. Its good to know that they were all okay out in the snowy conditions; well at least they were on the move 🙂 The snow began to thaw in the afternoon and I am sure they were all as glad about that as the rest of us! 
photographing them, I was looking into the sun and there was a heat haze across the field – typical! I have never seen two hares together before and I was so surprised to see them. My attention was drawn away to the birds in the hedgerow, two robins that were hoping about having a slight territorial dispute and then to long-tailed tits in the top of the trees. Walking down the lower part of the copse towards the river I again spooked the roe deer. I hear them moving then normally see white bottoms bouncing off through the trees. I need to locate myself in the copse at some point to photograph them. My guess is there is normally two or three that run off. 
The river was full. It had obviously burst its banks recently as a patch of the field was a large puddle. I have never seen it that full before. It did look pretty with the sun shining and the neutral tones of the fields behind. Two swans flew over and later a cormorant. I heard a wren and a moorhen but didn’t see them. The holes that I have seen in the bank previously were fully submerged so if they were homes to any creature they were 100% flooded out. I was stood watching three goldfinch flitting between the trees, I turned round to find a hare metres from me. I slowly lifted the camera to take a photo but it was gone as soon as I moved a muscle, I hadn’t expected to see one right behind me! I estimate there were 3 to 4 hares in the field! As the river receded from its original flooded level it has dropped lots of plastic bottles along the rivers edge, I did think about trying to get them out, however, I was on my own and didn’t know how sturdy the bank was! I will take backup and fish them out next time I go. If the water level doesn’t rise again they look like they will remain wedged in the tree line.
Rather than walking round the field I walked back up the copse. Two wren were in the hedgerow and a blackbird was keeping a few meters ahead of me all the way along, I’d get close it would fly a little further along and the continued. I heard a bee, a queen buff-tailed bumble bee, it was buzzing along the side of the hedgerow.
January 30th – 31 mute swans were just on the other side of the fence, I didn’t have my camera so I took a quick photograph on my phone. I haven’t seen them that far up the field before. Hopefully they will be staying around for a little longer, I think they will still be there for as long as the crop is still sprouting. 
I made my way out into the field through the owners back garden as the road wasn’t a safe place to be! The mute swans are back 🙂 there were six feeding on the crop! I’m sure the farmer isn’t too pleased to see them but I was 🙂 Last April there were approximately 40 grazing so I am expecting the numbers to increase. I walked a different route to normal as I was trying to avoid the accident. I didn’t see a lot, a pheasant that ran away very quickly and a great tit in the trees. There were other small birds about but they were difficult to see as the sun was in my eyes and they were just shadows. As I got closer to the river I noticed a huge number of woodpigeon; I counted approximately 96, they were all feeding on the crop too! The river is so much easier to see into now its Winter. I can even sort of tell where the edge of the bank is! Today I only spotted a wren, grey heron and a moorhen.
On the walk back up I stuck to my normal route, I did however quickly realise it was the much muddier choice! There were three advantages though; I briefly glimpsed two roe deer in the copse, a brown hare ran out from the hedgerow in front of me and a buzzard flew over. I know there are brown hare in the copse and I have seen them in the next field along but but this is the first time on my patch 🙂
November 21st/22nd – I put a TrailCam out to see who might be wandering about in the dark. I wasn’t surprised to see Mr Fox, I say Mr it could be Mrs but its good to know that there is one about. It looked to be the same fox in each clip. I need to start documenting facial features to see if there is more than one about.
