Category Archives: Wildlife

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 06

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This morning I noticed a lot of fledglings in the garden next to my patch. Unfortunately I was running late for work so didn’t have time to take any photos.  There were 12 starling causing chaos, 2 great spotted woodpeckers and 1 rook, all with their parents begging for food.  

This evening I managed to take some shots of the house sparrows that on appearance, fledged tonight.  The parents were still going into the nest hole under the roof tiles, as well as tending to the ones hopping around on the roof.  It seems like everything fledged in the garden today! 

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 05

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This evening I went for a short walk down the track used by the local farmer.  Its very wild and is just left to do what ever it wants! I haven’t been there for a while so thought I’d have a quick look around.  It had been my intention to look for young rabbits but I didn’t see any tonight; I only saw the tail of an adult and the side of a male pheasant before it headed off into the corn field.  There is a treasure trove of flowers and grasses to explore along the length of the track – some I could recognise and others I have no idea about like this tiny pink flower.

I also came across a plant taller than me – though that’s not that difficult! I believe it to be greater burdock though I’m not 100% sure.

At the end of the track I could hear the cuckoo, he was obviously much further away and probably down by the river.  I’m sure he was getting closer as I walked back up the track.  This is the third year I have heard him in this location but I have never seen him! I am 90% sure that I located a sparrow nest on my way back.  One flew out of the hedgerow near the field entrance and I could hear the chicks still chirping away.  The hedge is very thick and I didn’t want to disturb it by trying to actually locate them. 

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 03

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After the blue tits fledged yesterday I thought I’d sit in the garden this morning and see who else was about. Unfortunately we believe ‘nest box 1’ fledged early this morning and some if not all were predated by magpies. 4 magpies were seen in the tree chasing something and we can only assume it was the blue tit chicks. There has been no feeding flights to the box and no chirping coming from it. We just have to hope at least some survived. 

I didn’t time my bird count today, though I was watching for over an hour. I saw:

1 robin, 3 great tit, 2 blue tit, 2 woodpigeon, 2 blackbird (1 juvenile) 1 greenfinch, 2 goldfinch, 1 dunnock and 2 white dove

The robin has a pattern to his garden visits.  He lands on the corner of the garden shed, fly’s to the bird bath, and then either on to the feeders or the floor.  He followed this pattern on 4 out of 5 visits.   I haven’t seen any of the fledgling blue tits 🙁 

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 02

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Last year we had one nest box in the garden and blue tits nested.  This year we have two nest boxes, and blue tits nested in both. Today the chicks in ‘nest box 2’ FLEDGED 🙂 I was lucky enough to sit and watch 5 little ones take the leap. 

Nesting started back on April 14th with the collection of nesting material.  As soon as we see them start to use the nest box we put up extra nesting material so they don’t have to use up too much energy going to find it.  They seemed to like the sheeps wool more than the moss this year.  

We first noticed them taking in food on May 10th so they have been feeding the chicks for roughly 22 days.  We didn’t look inside the nest box, as to open the boxes we have to take the sides off so there was no way I was going to chance disrupting them.  So, we have no real way of knowing exactly how many fledged today, but at least we know there were definitely 5.  I am hoping to see more of them in the garden but they did disperse quite quickly.  

I have heard the chicks chirping in ‘nest box 1’, looking at my spread sheet of data they started to feed their chicks two days later than ‘nest box 2’ so they could also fledge any day 🙂

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 01

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Everyone has seen cuckoo spit but I don’t think everyone always knows what it is! I knew that the ‘spit’ contains the nymph of a common froghopper (Philaenus spumarius) but other than that I knew little else.  ‘Cuckoo spit’ can be seen in May and June so it’s a perfect time to go out to see if you can find some 🙂 The nymphs feed by sucking sap from the food plant, these are generally herbaceous plants such as thistles; today I have seen them on lavender and brambles.  According to my reading the adults are first seen in late June and in greatest abundance in July.  However, we are not very likely to see an adult! They are 6mm long but disappear as soon as they are disturbed – they can jump 70cm in one bound!

30 Days Wild 2018 

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It sort of scares me that its June already! Another Wildlife Trusts ’30 Days Wild’ has crept around very quickly.  As you will know from this blog and my Twitter feed I do get out in nature on a regular basis, however in June I know its 100% 30 days of nature 🙂 I think its a great idea to encourage people to get out into the world rather than spending a lot of time in the house or behind a screen (she says typing away!).  I learn a lot from 30 Days Wild every year, be it my own new discoveries of a beetle I have never seen before or by seeing a tweet or blog by someone else with something new to look out for which I can incorporate into my list of activities for the month. 

This is now my third year of ’30 Days Wild’ and I find it an enjoyable adventure to find something to do everyday, be it an hour at a nature reserve or 10mins in the garden. I do make a rough list of ideas, normally of places to visit but generally I just see what discoveries I make on the day. Last year the most exciting of days were the morning I saw a barn owl while driving to work, discovering brown hares in the next field over and spotting a badger while out for an evenings walk.  It really is a case of if you step outside your door you don’t know where you might be swept of too and what amazing things you will discover.  What will your adventure be during ’30 Days Wild’?

My Patch – May 2018

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May 1st – I thought the starlings had one nest at the front of the house like they did last year; under the roof tiles. Actually there seems to be two, both near the bathroom, and fairly close together.  There is also one nest at the back of the house again under the roof tiles above one of the bedrooms, this location was used last year as well. This afternoon I saw four swallows swooping over the field.  They didn’t stay around unfortunately but its good to see them back.  I was heading home and was already running late; then I spotted a tractor in the next field ploughing.  There were loads of gulls and in the distance following it a red kite.  Why when you have no time to stop do interesting things happen?!

May 3rd – I put the trailcam out in the field last night with some left over food and some eggs.  Although it was misty it did show a mouse, a hedgehog and a fox.  At least we now know the hedgehog is travelling though the field and not across the road!  The fox took the food away.

May 4th – The starlings are definitely feeding their young; when in the bathroom you can hear them calling in the roof space. I’m not sure which nest it is though seeing there are two close to the bathroom! 

May 8th – This morning I noticed the starling chicks at the back of the house are calling when the parent disappears under the roof tiles. There was a Streamer moth on the kitchen window – thanks to all those on Twitter who confirmed this for me.  Identifying moths is new to me and this one didn’t seem easy to find!

May 9th – I was out working on the garden, the starlings at the back of the house are working hard to feed their chicks, I could hear them calling once every 10-15 minutes or so 🙂

May 14th – I haven’t seen them yet but the owner informs me there were 10 fledgling jackdaws lined up on the fence being fed suet this morning! 

May 15th – The starlings are busily back and forth to the nests taking in food.  At the back of the house the parents have been sat outside the nest with food calling, I think they are trying to encourage the young to leave!  At the front the parents don’t seem to be calling, just flitting in and out.  One carried out a fecal sac but I missed getting a photo and one has also been taking in a bit of nesting material.  I wonder if they are starting to get prepared for a second brood?!  The jackdaw in the the middle chimney has been sat on the edge of the brick work with food.  I have been seeing many more moths in the garden but I am having problems identifying them! 

May 17th – Tonight I discovered house sparrows are nesting under the roof tiles at the back of the house 😃 they were busy taking in food. 

While I was trying to take some photos of them I took a very quick picture of two birds on the roof thinking they were house sparrows.  After correcting the exposure that was, well, not correct! I discovered that they were actually linnet.  I have never knowingly seen linnet before and this was a definite first for the garden, I now wonder if there are more out in the field.

The jackdaw nesting in the end chimney was sat on the TV ariel with food, they seem quite jumpy when there is anyone in the garden and are reluctant to actually go into their nests. 

I went to walk around the field but its getting too over grown to get around.  I will have to try a different route on another day.  Hopefully they other side of the field has a wider margin, at least I know on that side there are no rabbit holes to fall down! 

May 24th – There are fledgling starlings in the garden 🙂 I don’t think they are from the nests here as they are still taking food in and I can hear the chicks calling still.  Hopefully ours will fledged soon.  

While I have been working on the garden I have noticed a lot more of the small creatures that live here. A potential Ichneumon wasp, lots of snails and slugs, and some very fast moving spiders that I haven’t been able to have a good look at yet! I may have to relocate some of the slugs and snails out into the field as some of my sunflowers have met a slimy end!

May 30th – The cuckoo is stall calling from across the field.  He always seems to be where I am not!

May 31st – The jackdaws are still feeding young in one of the chimneys, I could hear them calling this morning. The fledgling starlings are making it difficult to hear if there are still chicks in the other nests as they are just so loud! 

My Patch – April 2018

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A year ago this April was my first visit to my patch and my first blog about it.  The year seems to have flown by far to fast! 

Now daylight saving has occurred and Spring has finally arrived, my evenings are filled with visiting the patch or garden after work when time allows – the garden has been top of the list because I want to get the wildflower seeds in!   

April 5th – The starlings and jackdaws were all collecting nesting material and flying up to the roof. I need to try and locate where they are all nesting in the roof. I’m sure the jackdaws are using the chimney and facia boards as they did last year but need to do more research on the exact location of the starlings. 

April 9th – Two mute swans flew in to graze and a rook landed on the bird feeder. It’s the first rook I have seen land in the garden area. I am surprised that the mute swans are still about, although low in numbers now.  Last year they didn’t stay as long, though it was a different crop in the field.  I can only assume they will visit as long as there are shoots to graze on. 

April 10th – I put the trailcam out last night after thinking I had identified hedgehog feceas in the garden, I was correct 🙂 There are also loads of baby snails in the garden; feasting on the cyclamen leaves.

April 12th – I went to put some food out for the hedgehog and discovered that he had already found some! 

There are definitely jackdaws in the roof, you can clearly hear them chattering through the ceiling of one of the bedrooms 🙂 the occupant of the room isn’t so pleased about it!  I wish I lived there, it would be lovely to wake up to them chattering every morning. 

The trailcam footage from the garden showed that the hedgehog feeding station isn’t really working…

At least we now know that a fox is visiting the garden! It explains where the cat food dishes have been disappearing too!  

April 19th – The deer were in the field first thing, barely noticeable in the rape. 


April 20th – I took a short walk in the field this afternoon, to be honest it was a bit too warm to be doing so.  The oil-seed rape has sprung up since the weather has improved which does mean it looks very pretty now.  Along the field margins are many wildflowers; dead red-nettle, etc The stinging nettles which are now great in number are camouflaging the rabbit holes rather well! I know this as I managed to put my foot down one, thankfully it had been dug out at an angle and not a direct drop! I may have to tie ribbon to the hedgerow to mark out where they are! There were bee-flies, and numerous butterflies; brimstone, small tortoiseshell and peacock all of whom didn’t want to sit still for long enough for a photograph, when they did they kept their wings firmly shut! There were also some white butterflies in the distance but I couldn’t clearly identify them. I could hear the pheasant calling down the bottom of the field, he is quite vocal these days. In the hedgerow I could see house sparrows and blue tits, while woodpigeon’s and crow’s were flying over overhead.  On my walk back I didn’t fancy my chances with the rabbit holes so walked along the track just the other side of the hedgerow, the deer were grazing in the next field over 🙂  

April 24th – there was a toad in the garden. 

April 25th – a starling took a leaf under the roof tiles, a different location to where I noticed them the other day. 

April 30th – a jackdaw was sat in the tree with a beak full of fur! I heard my first cuckoo of the year 🙂

My Patch – March 2018

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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 🙂

I spent some time in the garden defrosting the birdbath, ensuring the bird feeders were full and of course cutting up some apple for the fieldfare.  In the afternoon I headed out into the field to see if there was anything else around.  Sensibly most everything was either at the bird feeders or in hiding.  The vegetation covered in snow was very pretty and the river looked lovely in the snow. I liked the mini icicles that formed on the branches that were dipping into the river, there must be a technical term for this but I have been unable to find it. Walking into the wind and snow on my way back up was a challenge!  In the copse the only sign of life was the brief glimpses of the redwing foraging in the leaf litter, but it was great to see them.

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 6th – 7 mute swans, I believe the rest are still located in the next field. There was a bird singing but I have no idea what it was! 

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.  

March 14th – The two male pheasants seem to be becoming a regular sighting. They always seem to be together. 

March 16th – A mallard flew over as I was topping up the bird feeders, it must have been lost as it turned round and flew back towards where it came from! 

March 26th – starlings are going up into the roof with nesting material 🙂

March 28th – tonight I took a brief bird count in the garden: 27 house sparrows, 1 dunnock, 2 great tit, 1 collard dove, 5 starling, 2 blue tit, 1 coal tit and a great spotted woodpecker. 

My Patch – February 2018

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February has been a much more successful month in the field, with Spring finally on its way I have seen many more goings on…  

February 12th – I noticed this morning a Jackdaw looking in the chimney. They nested in it last year so hopefully it is a good sign that they will nest there again. 

February 13th – there were 32 mute swans in the field this morning. It’s nice to see they are still visiting in good numbers. 

February 15th – 10 starlings were sat on the roof chattering.  I noticed one sitting on the guttering near one of last years nest sites, it then popped in under the roof tile – looks like they are revisiting last years nests 🙂 The crows were also up on the chimney again.

February 20th – this morning there were 30 mute swans and a pheasant in the field. I know pheasants are around the field but this was the first time I had seen one at the top end of it. I had a quick visit to the garden tonight, I discovered fox scat in the flowerbed!

February 22nd – this morning there were two male pheasants in the field. They were closer to the garden and I am starting to wonder if they are picking up bird food that might have been dropped over the fence. Also 21 mute swans 🙂 

February 23rd – I put the trailcam out in the garden over night to see if the foxy visitor returned. Unfortunately nothing but plants swaying in the wind.

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 passed the copse I again spooked the roe deer, 6 of them ran out the other side and settled in the next field over, through the trees I could also see where all of the mute swans have slowly disappeared to 🙂  Along the edge of the trees as I was walking down to the river I saw a bird running along the hedgerow, 99% sure it was a red-legged partridge.  I’ve not seen one in the field before.

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! 

On my walk back up I’m sure I saw a tawny owl sat on a tree branch on the edge of the copse, it flew off as soon as I saw it so I didn’t have a good view, but it looked owl like in flight, it flew back into the copse.  

February 26th – 5 mute swans and 11 roe deer near the copse this morning 🙂

February 27th – 1 pheasant and 2 mute swans in the field with 5 long-tailed tits on the feeder and a robin pottering around in the flowerbed. The mute swans have reduced in number over the month, but at least I know they are just in the next field over 🙂