Tag Archives: #30DaysWild

30 Days Wild 2019 – Day 06

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This morning I left for work a little earlier as I wanted to get to the patch garden with enough time to watch the feeders for a while.  Over the last couple of days both rook and starling fledgling’s have been seen earlier in the morning; I wanted to try and see them.  The rooks still haven’t got used to people being in the garden with them so I positioned myself in an upstairs window and waited…

I didn’t see any of the rooks or starlings but I was treated to the house sparrows fledging.  I haven’t seen them in the garden before so I think they fledged this morning as the parents were still collecting food and heading up to the roof where they had nested yesterday.  There were 4 or 5 balls of fluffy feathers that were bumbling their way through the hazel and white beam tree calling for food. I kept losing them in the leaves as they were continually on the move.  It was good to see them using the trees as cover as the amount of corvids that visit the garden does seem to be steadily increasing now the rooks have fledged! 

As far as I know it is only the jackdaws that are now left to fledge.  I know they are still in the chimney as they can be heard calling from within the house.  The home owners will be glad when they have fledged – who needs an alarm clock when you have jackdaws!

In other fledgling news, while I was at work walking back to the office a small bird caught my eye very close to me in a pine tree.  I stopped and watched until I could see it clearly; a fledgling chaffinch! I continued watching and one of the parents came back to feed them; I wish I had a camera with me, they were only a few feet away!

When I was leaving the car park a male pheasant chased a female to mate with her and bowled over the chick she had next to her!  Thankfully it got back up on its feet and found Mum again and went back to feeding. I need to start taking my camera to work!

30 Days Wild 2019 – Day 05

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For a few weeks a family of brown rats have been visiting the garden.  They live in the field and pop under the fence to take food from the bird feeder.  I know most people don’t like rats and to be honest this family is expanding.  They haven’t been seen venturing any further than the bird feeding area so I think they are fairly contained on that side of the garden (for now at least). 

A few weeks ago they were quite shy and would hide in the field and peak through the gap under the fence.  

Now they are a little more bold!  I think they realise it is safe to come out when I am in the garden and I can actually get quite close without them running away.  They are weary of the cats who sit in the garden next to the ground feeder ready to pounce on them.  There haven’t been any ‘presents’ left so we don’t think the cats are very effective at catching them!  

I have spent this evening sat at garden table watching them dart about collecting little bits of food and hurrying back out into the field.  I think I have found their burrow entrance and am going to put the trailcam out to see if I can get any footage of them using it.  

Brown rats were introduced to the UK in 1700 and have spread widely due to their ability to adapt to their surroundings and breed at a rapid rate – a female can have approx 60 young a year!  I’m hoping the garden rats don’t have quite that many!   

 

30 Days Wild 2019 – Day 03

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If you have been reading my garden blog posts you will be aware I have been growing wild flowers from seed to plant in the garden and also the field.  Tonight I spent an hour planting out as many as I could into the garden. They really needed to be planted out before now but I’m new to all this and still learning; though I have a feeling they will all be okay 🙂 I keep forgetting that we are only at the start of June and at this time last year I was only just sprinkling seeds in the beds hoping they would germinate, so feel I have made more progress this year. 

The flower bed I have been planting isn’t very big but even if you only have a few pots on the patio, adding wildflowers to the garden is a great way to give additional support to our pollinators. They will also look amazing too 🙂

Tonight I have planted out red campion, oxeye daisy, common fleabane and lady’s bedstraw.

30 Days Wild 2019 – Day 02

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Not every Sunday, but on most, I do my best to take part in #Wildflowerhour on Twitter.  Wild Flower Hour is a wonderful community of people that are interested in the wild flowers which are in bloom in the UK at the present time.  I have been taking part for about 9 months now and I have learnt so much from everyone that takes part.  If you are interested in our wild flowers please do give them a follow, even if you don’t post any images of your finds to start with you can learn so much by looking at everyone else’s photos.  As I slowly began to get more confident in my identification I also gained confidence to post more images.  Even if you don’t know the name of a flower you have photographed someone will be there to help ID it for you, especially if you include #WildflowerID to your tweet.  I know as more of the yellow flowers come into bloom I will be asking for help as I find some of them so confusing; the difference between Common Ragwort and Hoary Ragwort, nope I still haven’t got my head around that one yet!  

Today on my walk I found…

Fox-and-cubs

Yarrow

Green Alkanet

Hedgerow Crane’s-bill

Black medick

Herb-Robert

Dog rose

Common Bird’s-foot-trefoil

Cleavers

Wood Avens

White Dead-nettle

Bush vetch

Red clover

Common vetch

Dandelion

Oxeye daisy

30 Days Wild 2019 – Day 01

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It is the first day of 30 Days Wild and I didn’t have a plan for what to do!  I watched a pair of house sparrows collecting some nesting material from the moss and feathers we put out in the garden; when I went to get a camera to photograph them they didn’t come back! I was looking at the garden and realised there was a patch in the flowerbed that I could dig up… I decided I would complete Mission 2: Worm Detective of this years Gardenwatch by Springwatch.  I have really like that this years Springwatch has included a lot more information about our own back gardens and the smaller creatures that live around us.  I think it is a great way to get more people out in their garden / outdoor spaces and interacting with our surroundings.  I spend a lot of time in the garden and really like looking at all the creepy crawlies that live there.  They are so much more accessible than some of the bigger mammals we live with and a great way to interact with nature.  I have discovered once you start looking you can’t stop and then want to learn more about each new friend you find.

Mission 2: Worm Detective…

I collected together a trowel, a box, a couple of plant pots to use as containers, a 30cm ruler, 4 stones and pen & paper then headed off to dig a hole!

As I didn’t have any twigs to mark out the corners of my 30cm square I roughly marked it with a few stones and got digging!  What I hadn’t taken into consideration was the bed wasn’t flat so everything was at a bit of an angle! 

I’ll be honest I didn’t expect to find much as I was sorting through the soil, it was all so dry… I started to put worms in the flower pot but I after a few minutes thought it was far to warm to leave them sitting in the sun, so as I found them, I measured them and got them back into the flowerbed as quickly as I could so they didn’t dry out.  In total I found 15 worms varying in size from 1cm – 6cm.  

Along with the worms I also found 1 ant, 1 woodlouce and 3 centipede. 

I really enjoyed digging in the garden and looking a little more closely at what was living under the ground, it is something I plan to do again 🙂 

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 30

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We have had hedgehogs visiting the garden for the last three years, I think we have three in total but we only ever see two at the same time.  They vary in size and that is why I think we have three.  Last night each hedgehog headed straight for the water bowls as soon as they entered the garden.  We have been filling them up each night, which is vitally important for them in this hot weather, what they don’t drink over night the birds have as reserve water until the bird bath is topped up in the morning.  

Last night we initially had one hedgehog show and then 15mins later a second turned up.  They didn’t get too close to each other but they didn’t argue.  There were two hedgehogs out the front of the house the other week that were barging each other around and making a lot of noise!  For some reason last night they both ran off at the same time in the same direction, I hove no idea why as nothing showed up on the camera.  We do have a lot of cats who use the garden as a corridor, they generally just pass thought and don’t stop.  Both hedgehogs did return not long after though.   

We know that at least one of the hedgehogs gets to the garden from the road side of the house, we generally know when it arrives as our house rabbit sits and listens, facing the wall it walks next to! the other looks like it comes from the back of the garden through the fence. 

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 29

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A few weeks ago I noticed the Oxeye daisy’s at work were in flower. They come up every year and their numbers are strong.


Today I went to see if they had gone over. Many of them had so I broke off two flower heads, thanked the plant and took them home. I plan to distribute the seeds in the garden next to my Patch (I have permission to do this) and also some along the road verge. They have recently cut the grasses that were happily growing, so I thought if a few flowers come up next year it would add to the variety of vegetation. If you don’t count the cow parsley there are actually no flowers growing in the verge at all, I’d like to slowly change this to try and help our pollinators 🙂

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 28

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When leaving work tonight I found this cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha) in the road.  I have never seen one before but managed to identify it from images I have seen on Twitter.  I learn a lot of plants and insects from other peoples Tweets 🙂  I took a quick picture and then tried to move it, only to realise it was not moving at all and never would again.  I picked it up off of the floor and brought it home.  Normally we get such fleeting glances of insects as they fly by that I thought I would take the opportunity to have a closer look.

Cockchafer are common in the UK and are also know as the May-bug.  They typically appear late April to early May and live for around 6 weeks.  Eggs are laid around June – July, the grubs then feed on roots and tubers for about 3 years until they are about 4cm.  They pupate and emerge as adults in spring.  Their numbers decreased in the 20th century due to pesticide use but their numbers have been bouncing back since the 1980’s with the regulations of pesticide.

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 27

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Well today was just a write off really!  My car decided that it no longer wanted to start, the ignition just didn’t want to turn.  I did what it said online to try and release it but no to avail.  I had to call the RAC.  They were very helpful and the man turned up within the target time they gave me.  He managed to get the key to turn, he did the same as what I did but with more force – I was scared of breaking it further – but he had obviously encountered this problem on many occasions before and knew what he was doing  The car is now in the garage waiting for replacement part!  Nothing like starting the day with a bill of a few hundred pounds!

As my day was rather eventful! I didn’t get to do what I had planned for today which was check on the local badgers 🙁  I did however sit and watch the sunset tonight for a little while after watering the garden.  I could hear a hedgehog rustling in the vegetation ☺

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 26

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Today’s 30 Days Wild isn’t quite so nice as all the rest.  This morning when I got to the house next to my patch I found a baby robin by the door (I don’t think it had fledged but could be wrong), with a pleased looking cat sat next to it!  

Now normally if he decides to catch anything its mice and rats.  He was a stray that has made himself a home as a farm cat.  After I had told the cat off – not that he listened, I took the robin and buried it in the garden.  I didn’t fancy letting him eat it.  I then noticed him looking in the flower bed at the front of the house and discovered the head and wings of a blue tit!!  He is not in my good books.  I don’t like the fact that he has killed two birds, but I can’t tell him off to severely.  Finally after 8 years he has just plucked up the courage to let people within 2 feet of him and I can actually stroke him now, which with him getting older can only be an advantage.  He is a nice cat, except the bird/mice/rat catching aspect! I’m hoping he doesn’t catch anymore anytime soon.  

I don’t like to think about all the animals he has caught over the years. I guess he does generally eat his prey so in a way it was / is survival instinct for him, but he gets fed, so generally he doesn’t have a need to eat extra items. In the last year another cat has decided to make his home there too. He is very friendly and to our knowledge is too lazy to catch prey, he just shouts at humans for food instead! 

It’s estimated by the Mammal Society that 55 million birds are killed by cats each year! To me that seems like a huge number, especially when so many of our bird species are in decline.  There is however no evidence to show that cats are causing a reduction in numbers as some of the species with the most intense declines would not have a lot of contact with cats.  However any species that already has pressure put on it with loss of habitats for example do not really need added pressure from our feline friends.   

The RSPB suggest putting collars on cats to alert prey to their presence. That has been tried with the friendly cat as he can be picked up, but he hates the collar. He walks backwards to try and take it off when it’s put on, so there is no way he will wear it! and the main prey catcher – well unfortunately I don’t think he will ever be tame enough to even try to put a collar on him.