My Patch – April 2019

April 3rd – This morning in the garden there were two robins, long-tailed tits and the starlings were clicking up on the roof.  

April 10th – some late afternoon sun brought out the bees and a 7-spot ladybird.  Unfortunately I didn’t get very clear photos of the bees so not sure which ones they were!  I still find them confusing.


April 11th – This evening I got a chance to take a short walk around the field.  The male fallow deer were located out in the centre of the field, I think they are starting to get used to me as they don’t react too much now.  I was hoping I would start to find some flowers in the field but its either too early or too many herbicides have been sprayed so they haven’t had a chance to develop yet.  I did find a lone lesser celandine.  In the garden there is a male goat willow tree, in the field down near next doors garden, is what I believe to be a female goat willow.  

The birds that nest around the house have been much more visible around their nest sites, the jackdaws are in the chimneys and the starlings are taking nesting material into the roof 🙂

There was a bee checking out holes in the garden wall this evening, it has taken me a while to figure out, but I have finally narrowed it down to being a hairy-footed flower bee.  The first one I have ever seen 🙂 

April 15th – this morning I found my first brimstone moth, just sat on the wall outside the front door!  

April 18th – Whilst tidying the raised bed I noticed all the small creatures starting to appear in the vegetation.  The first one I spotted was apion frumentarium, next up was a tiny dark bush-cricket (Pholidoptera griseoaptera) and then a clover mite.  My last discovery of the day was a phalangium opilio spider.  I had never seen any of them before so this evening I had to do some research into what they all were!

Now I seem to have missed the nesting season this year!  I don’t know how; has all just happened earlier this year? or have I just been occupied with  growing plants and missed it? today I saw a starling take food into his nest!  Tomorrow I aim to pay a little more attention and train my camera on the nest hole to see exactly what is going on.  

April 19th – The starlings are 100% feeding in the nests at the back of the house, I watched both parents visit one after the other.  They both had at least two items of food in their beaks.  

There were more 7-spot ladybirds in the garden this afternoon and an orange-tip butterfly landed on the garlic mustard 🙂

April 20th – today I was concentrating on concreting the patio, however I couldn’t miss the common frog that hopped out of a hole underneath the raised bed and off across the patio.  He had been disturb as I had put sand over the top of him as I was filling in a hole and I hadn’t seen him!  I moved him up next to the small pond so he could hide under the plants.  

April 21st – there was a moth on the window, a Lunar marbled brown (Drymonia ruficornis).  I got out in the field for a walk this morning.  I heard my first cuckoo of the year – it is so nice to know he has returned safely.  I didn’t notice a lot of other birds, I don’t know if it was because I seemed to be noticing the insects or they just didn’t seem to be about.  I did have a companion with me who does make more noise than me when walking so it could have been a factor!  I did hear a woodpecker drumming.  

Since I have been following #Wildflowerhour on Twitter my botanical skills have improved greatly.  It is nice to be able to identify my finds without now having to spend hours trying to figure out what they are!  I want to take note this year of what is growing in the field so that next year I might be able to add to the population by growing them from seed and planting them out.  Today I identified, ground-ivy, red dead-nettle, cuckooflower and garlic mustard in the copse.  I was pleased to see the amount of garlic mustard there was as I know in the copse it won’t be cut down when the crop is harvested, hopefully it also explains the orange-tips who were darting around close by.  I need to go for a wander amongst it to see what else is growing in there!  

The time I save not having to look up flowers is definitely spent on the insects and arachnids!  After a lot of work identifying (I hope correctly) I found; Helophilus pendulus, Cucumber spider, Corizus hyoscyami, nomada sp. unknown, Nursery Web Spider, notostira elongata, Eupeodes sp. unknown, Pied Shieldbug (Tritomegas bicolor) on host plant white dead-nettle, Yellow Dung Fly (Scathophaga stercoraria), Flesh Fly (Sarcophaga carnaria), what I think is a pterostichus cupreus eating a harpalus affinis, Peacock butterfly and my first Dark-edged Bee-fly (Bombylius major) of the year!

When walking back up past the copse the fallow deer appeared in front of us.  They decided that is was safe enough to run out of the copse and into the field stopping a safe distance away.  I like these types of encounters 🙂

April 24th – I’m sure I saw a swallow this evening; I don’t think I was imagining it but it was only a fleeting glimpse.  I happened to take a photo of the garlic mustard and only noticed afterwards that there is a orange-tip egg on it 🙂 I hope we have some more.  It is nice to know that all I am trying to do with the garden is helping some of the garden visitors.   

April 25th – The starling chicks at the front of the house have started calling – across the garden and the neighbouring house I think there are now three starling nests with calling chicks. 

April 29th – The field was being sprayed when I got there this evening; I assume with pesticides. The male fallow deer who were resting in the middle of the field didn’t move until the machinery was two runs away from them. They ran off but then stopped short of the copse, they eventually disappeared.  The starlings are still calling and I heard the cuckoo again this evening 🙂

 

My Patch – September 2018

September 5th – I spotted a common frog in the garden tonight but didn’t manage to get a photo.  House martin’s and some unidentified geese flew over the field.

September 7th – there were rabbit’s in the field this morning.  It is so rare I actually see them that it is so nice when I do. 

September 10th – all of the hedgerows are being cut back as the ditches are being cleared and piping put in ready for the winter.  It looks very bare where everything is being removed 🙁

September 13th – this evening there was a common wasp on the ivy flowers at the front of the house.  Its lovely to see them using the ivy, I have made sure that no one has cut it back!   

September 16th – finally a picture of the common frog who has been using the back garden.  I must start wandering around in the garden after dark more… I found a brown garden snail eating the blackberries I had relocated for the birds, who have unfortunately ignored them.  At least someone was making the most of them! 

September 17th – I took a walk into the field this evening to look at the hedgerow and the ditch that they have dug out.  What I wasn’t expecting to find was quite so much rubbish!  There are loads of plastic bags, traffic cone parts, bits of metal fencing etc I will have to start to pick it all up before the field is planted again! I don’t think the contractor who dug the ditch is coming back to do it!  The rabbits still have burrows, though, I think they would have had to dug themselves out as their original entrance holes were mainly covered over.  When I reached the copse a roe deer appeared from around the corner.  I didn’t take a ‘proper’ camera with me as I was only going to look at the hedge!  At sunset about 40 geese flew over in 3 separate batches.

Tonight I heard a tawny twooing – I have now signed up for the BTO’s ‘tawny owl calling survey’.  All you have to do is listen once a week between September 30th and March 31st for 20 minutes  a week and record if you hear a tawny or not. You don’t have to listen every week if you don’t have the time, but a minimum of six records is recommended – you don’t even have to leave your house if you don’t want to, you can listen with a window open! Check out more information and how to sign up HERE 

September 20th – this evening there were martins swirling in the wind over the garden, it makes me happy and sad at the same time knowing that they will be leaving us soon.

September 23rd – this evening there was a common toad in the garden, I think it lives under the step to the back door.

September 27th – it is starting to feel more like Autumn, there was a mist over the field this morning.  This afternoon I found a rove beetle near the bird feeders. 

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day 17

I haven’t been to Wildlife Trust’s Lower Moor Farm since January, so I thought it was about time I made another visit and went along this afternoon.  I’m not sure if it was the weather or I just picked the wrong time of day but there didn’t seem to be much bird life about!  There was a cormorant sat on a post, a few woodpigeon’s flying from tree to tree, a black headed gull, a grey heron flew over and a family of mute swans were on Cottage lake.  There were smaller birds flitting from tree to tree but everything seemed to be hiding away in all the leaf cover.  

The most exciting event of the afternoon was spotting my first orchid – a common spotted-orchid.  I have probably seem them before but no knowingly so! 

Also there are loads of froglets! One poor little chap had got himself caught in spiders webs on the floor of the hide, so after carefully removing the web from his back legs I placed him safely back outside.  The walk back to the car was slow and careful, I counted 28 froglets 🙂

 

Lower Moor Farm – March 2016

There were definite signs of spring at Lower Moor Farm last Friday.  Grey Herons and Carrion Crows nest building along with Common Frogs mating and my first butterfly sightings of the year.

We arrived on site at about 10am, it was still very quiet, there only being two cars in the Car Park. I thought it was going to be really busy so it was a nice surprise.

My first spot of the day was a Grey Heron who was collecting nesting material on the far bank of Cottage Lake.  According to the log book in the hide he had been doing this for at least 40mins.  It was nice to just sit and watch his process, on occasion he seemed a bit ambitious with the size of twig he was trying and failing to pick up.

The Wildlife Trusts - Lower Moor Farm - Grey Heron gathering nesting material

The Wildlife Trusts - Lower Moor Farm - Reed Bunting (Female)My lesson learnt for the day is ‘Remember to take the bird book even if you think you won’t need it!’…  to the left of the hide there is a feeder that had been topped up that morning.  I was fairly sure what I was watching was a Reed Bunting but I doubted myself as I had never actually seen one before.  Seeing I had no phone signal I had no way of double checking either.

After lunch we moved round to the other hide looking over Swallow Pool which looks upon the other side of the tree the Grey Heron had been flying to that morning.  There turned out to be two Grey Heron nests in the tree quite close together.  Some people came into the hide saying they had seen three Roe Deer, not long after one appeared further down the lake and proceeded to take a swim across.

I look forward to visiting Lower Moor Farm again soon, I hear they have Otters but they haven’t been seen for a while…

My full list of sightings for the day:
Butterflies: Brimstone, Small Tortoiseshell
Birds: Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Coot, Cormorant, Dunnock, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Grey Heron, Long-tailed Tit, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Red-crested Pochard, Reed Bunting, Robin, Wren
Amphibians: Common Frog
Mammals: Roe Deer