My Patch – August 2017

August 4th – The starlings are growing, and becoming noisier by the day. They are becoming rather bossy!

There have been bananas put in the garden area and today there was a speckled wood feeding on them and 6 red admirals on the buddleia. 

August 7th – Tonight I saw ‘Strike’. A starling that was born last year, it has two white tail feathers so is fairly identifiable. Its good to know that he/she is still around. 50 swallows feeding over the field was a great sight. They have suddenly appeared but I think that is due to the rapeseed crops being harvested so they are now feeding over the remaining crop fields. 

August 13th – this afternoon / evening the farmer began to harvest the Wheat crop. 

August 15th – they have finished harvesting the 126 acres and are now bailing. Tomorrow I will be able to walk freely across the field. A buzzard flew up from a pile of straw into the copse; the first one I have seen since April. 

August 31st – Tonight I took my first walk to the river at bottom of field. Some of the path is a little over grown so I had to walk part of the way in the next field. I’m glad I did; as I came out from the trees a brown hare ran from the field back into the trees, it took me by surprise. The river is looking quite over grown and it is difficult to see into it. I might need to do a little tidying of the banks over winter just so there are some small paths to the river so it’s easier to see. At the moment it’s actually difficult to tell where the edge of the bank was so I had to be a little cautious. I did however see 2 mute swan, a moorhen and most surprising of all a kingfisher flew by 🙂 I accidentally discovered a rabbit hole when I nearly lost my foot down it! There are lots of tunnels through the vegetation that surround the field, I would guess most are rabbit, mice / rats. There are also some tyres and rubbish that needs collecting!

On my walk back 42 canada geese flew over 🙂