I was trying my best to keep my blog posts up to date this year, however, I have already fallen behind! Work has had some changes that haven’t been for the better, so I have been struggling quite a lot with the day to day and not had any motivation to write anything 🙁 The darkness of the evenings hasn’t helped very much either. I’ve not been able to have much time off from work, so I have only got to go out briefly on one afternoon.
January 18th – I had the afternoon off work to have a walk around the patch, however it didn’t really go to plan! To start with I had to remove the remains of a spruce tree from the field. The land owners brother, although told not to, decided to dump in the field what he couldn’t fit in the trailer to take to the recycling centre! I spent about an hour moving everything he had moved, back round to the house and put it in the so called full trailer! I knew there was quite a bit there but I didn’t expect to have to drag half a tree down the road! I’m not very big so it must have been quite a sight! The vegetation underneath the debris I had moved from the field was yellow from the lack of light, at least now I hope it will recover. A blackbird was thankful I had moved it as he had found insects to eat in the vegetation.
The remaining time I had left before sunset I was going to be spent looking at the vegetation in the field, but the hunter was seen going down the track so I couldn’t go far. He’s not allowed to shoot in the field but he can in the field and the copse next to it, so any stray bullets could be disastrous! I did take a short walk next to the house; the rabbits have been busy digging new burrows of which they will try and kill me with in the summer when they are covered over with nettles and grass! Its good to know that they are still there after their burrows were disturbed when the ditch was re-dug.
There is vegetation, but to me it is currently unrecognisable as it is all leaves – I’m not that good at identification yet! I was hoping to find at least one plant in flower, but no, nothing in the area that I walked. I did find some lichen on one of the trees, its not something I have looked at yet in the field but is something I should be looking at more this year – it might mean I need another new book! I think this one is yellow wall lichen but I could be wrong!
The garden birds are still very present, I saw; chaffinch, robin, blue tit, great tit, collard dove, starling, house sparrow and jackdaws this afternoon.
BTO tawny owl survey update:
January 9th 19:40 no owls heard – none heard all week
January 16th 20:15 no owls heard – none heard all week
January 22nd 19:15 no owls heard – none heard all week
January 31st 19:40 no owls heard – none heard all week
I really hope I hear one again soon!
