My Patch – August 2018

August 1st – The buzzard was back on the bale of straw tonight, it looks like it could be a juvenile to me.  

August 2nd – This evening there were 3 mint moths on the mint, so I’m really glad that it has been left to go to seed.  They were also joined by a mother-of-pearl month.  

August 8th – the great spotted woodpecker is still feeding on the nuts! He’s the main bird I see at the moment as he seems to be slightly braver than the other birds and will still feed if I’m in the garden as long as I’m not moving about too much. 

August 9th – I haven’t seen the rabbits in the field since March when I saw them running about in the snow. This morning they were running about near their burrows.  This afternoon I also found a 22-spot ladybird, I’ve never found one before! 

August 13th – One of the hedges has been cut! There isn’t a lot I can do about it as a local farmer is contracted to trim them but really! don’t they know they shouldn’t be doing that until at least September 🙁 There were fledgling goldfinches in the garden tonight, they were making one hell of a racket. I think the parents were trying to get them to feed for themselves. I wonder if they had been displaced from the hedgerows? I also found a buff-tip moth caterpillar, it took me by surprise as it was on the edge of the arm of one of the chairs. 

August 15th – I thought I saw a frog in the garden the other day but wasn’t convinced as it was small and mud coloured, it hopped but I only saw it out of the corner of my eye and it could have been a cricket. Today I saw it again, it was about an inch long, it saw me and leapt under the fence and into the field. 

August 22nd – This afternoon I found a badger in the ditch, I seems it was hit over the weekend and someone had moved it.  We moved her round into the field so any other creature wanting to feed on her wouldn’t be hit too.  The entrance to the field is where there are regular animal crossings. It’s on a slight bend and people just don’t slow down at all, they also seem to drive in the middle of the road so if another car is coming they have to swerve!  You would think if you were a regular driver of the road you would have more sense, but I guess not! 

August 23rd – tonight I took a walk down to the river, there wasn’t much activity.  There was litter floating downstream, sadly this is a regular occurrence each time I visit but the water is too deep for me to do anything about it.  The rabbits are still digging their burrows in the walkways around the field so I walked back along the track as I knew I wouldn’t be able to see them walking back across the field.  I can generally only see them when I walk into the field, in the other direction they are more camouflaged!  I spotted some of the culprits on my way back!

August 24th – One of the cats left a dead rat in the front garden of the house today!  At least we know the rats are still about… there is a barn a little further down the road and we think they catch them there, or next door have chickens so its a possibility they are in their garden too.  I do however think if they catch them they should eat them, not just leave them on the floor!

August 31st – tonight I found lots of caterpillars on the rose bush, after a little investigation I have discovered they are large rose sawfly.  All the gardening websites tell you how to get rid of them but these are happily munching away in the garden!  

Snow Tracks

Although the recent snowfall was only a couple of weeks ago, to be honest it feels like a lifetime ago! I headed out on the Saturday morning to look for snow tracks.  I have a good idea what visits the field in the day and a fair idea of what wanders around after dark, but normally finding tracks other than roe deer is not easy.  The snow however made it much easier 🙂 

I had been told that the house next to the owner had been walking their dog through the field, so I needed to get there early so I didn’t have dog prints in the mix.  Luckily they hadn’t been out by the time I got there.  I did however have cat prints everywhere! They were quite easy to spot as the cat wandered out into the field so I could have a good look at his print!

Along the top edge of the field along with the cat! I found fox prints, it had been quite active during the night by the looks of it but I guess seeing I now know there are rabbits living along the hedgerow I can see why.  It had been looking into the rabbit hole and it did look as though there had been a chase or at least a rabbit running in an arch.  The rabbits had clearly marked their burrow entrances with urine! At least I now know for sure who the holes belong to!  The only other tracks I found were pheasant, which seem to be spending time in this part of the field.

Instead of heading around the field I headed out into the next field along, I knew the mute swans were there and wanted to check on them.  I also found roe deer, rabbit, brown hare, fox and badger prints 🙂 All the four legged mammals that I have seen in my patch. Its good to know that they were all okay out in the snowy conditions; well at least they were on the move 🙂 The snow began to thaw in the afternoon and I am sure they were all as glad about that as the rest of us! 

My Patch – July 2017

I’m not sure where the last few months have gone! I fear the answer is spending far too much extra time at work. July and September are really busy and there is little time available for days off (though I did manage to squeeze in Birdfair 🙂 in August). Working later in the evening means little time to get to my patch unfortunately. Though I did manage a few short trips in July…

July 3rd – I took a short walk around the top end of the field encountering, 1 swallow, 3 woodpigeon and 11 starlings. 

July 12th – tonight there was a rabbit on the track at the side of field. I am yet to see a rabbit IN the field! 

July 17th – this evening I took a walk around the edge of part of the crop. I wanted to see what other plants were growing. I hadn’t gone too far from the house when Billy decided to join me, I always hear a meow before I see him! 

I found thistles, brambles, camomile and a few other plants and grasses that I am having problems identifying! A white plume moth, a red solider beetle and a red admiral. 

There are tracks through the crop that I’m guessing are either foxes, deer or both. 1 woodpigeon and 6 swallows flew over. 

July 19th – I was stood in the garden of the owners house looking again for any birds still nesting, when out flew a house sparrow carrying a feacil sac from under the roof tiles, I could hear the chicks chirping 🙂 There were also 15 Swallows over the field. 

July 20th – Roe deer and 3 swallows tonight. 

July 25th – The tree bumblebees appear to have gone from the facia board and I have seen the collard dove with the broken beak who is still feeding.

While looking out over the field from the gate 11 swallows flew by. I’ve started to notice that rooks and crows fly back over the field at dust to roost in nearby trees. 

My Patch – June 2017

As you are probably aware, if you are a regular reader, June was dominated by 30 Days Wild. I didn’t actually do many of the 30 Days in my patch which I guess seems a little odd now I look back at it but the Wheat crop is still present and not passable.  

Considering the height of the crop I was lucky to spot 3 Roe Deer running through the field on June 1st, I noticed them at the far back corner as they came out of the copse and managed to watch them for a short while until they ran out of sight. I walked down the track to the side of the field – there were some Rabbits feeding.  

June 4th The Blue Tits have Fledged, the parents are no longer going into the nest. Hopefully they have all fledged successfully.    

The Cuckoo was still calling on June 14th though I haven’t heard it since so I am unsure if it is still here of if it has started its migration.  

On June 15th I tried to get in the copse at the back of the field so that I could make my way to the river.  The stinging nettles are the same height of me so there was no way I was able to get through unless I cut them down.  In a way I am looking forward to later in the year so I can get around easier!

June 21st 10 Swallows were flying over the field and around the road.  

On the last day of June I encountered a very angry Starling! It is a young bird but it takes no nonsense and isn’t afraid to pull feathers out of the adult birds!  It sits in the bird feeder and goes for anyone that tried to feed.  Its defending the food so much that it seems to forget why its there in the first place! 

Collard Dove update – I have seen it in the garden, so can assume it is feeding enough to survive.

My Patch – April 2017

At the beginning of April there was still Swan activity in the field, approximately 40 Mute Swans were feeding on the shoots but by mid April had moved on.  While they were still there they were joined one evening by a heard of 22 Roe Deer. It was a fairly warm evening and they were primarily led down in the middle of the field.  They stayed until dusk, when they got up and started to graze. I believe they moved on when it got dark, but it was too dark for me to see where they had moved to!  I like it when the Deer are in the field, I know it means that they are safe. The land owner has an agreement with the farmer that no wildlife is to be harmed on the land.  This means when the culling season is upon us they can’t be shot in this field.

The middle of April I decided to take a closer look in one of the hedgerows, it didn’t go to plan.  I had company on my walk that isn’t the type of company that goes with looking for birds – a cat! My friend lives in one of the houses adjacent to my patch and has a cat that lives outdoors.  She’s very friendly and decided that coming for a walk with me was the way she would spend her evening.  I didn’t expect her to walk all the way down the track and into a copse with me, then walk all the way back! If I stopped to look at something she stopped and waited for me! All I saw was a Robin at the top of a tree and a Rabbit who was quite a distance away thankfully! 

My attention has been drawn to the birds in the garden, who are nesting in my friends house. As far as we know there are 2 Jackdaw nests and 3 Starling nests all located in the roof, be it the chimneys where the Jackdaws have made home or underneath the roof tiles where the Starlings are. I’m looking forward to seeing their fledglings in the garden 🙂

RSPB Lodmoor – April 2017

I decided it was time to take a few days off work, so that’s what I did just before Easter and headed to the coast.  I have been following Weymouth Wetlands on Twitter for a while now, knowing that it would be a destination I would be visiting. I think Twitter is great for researching what wildlife you can spot around the country, specifically when you are going to a named site.  

I arrived in Weymouth in the afternoon and quickly visited the Discovery Centre to have a look at their recent sightings board before moving on to Lodmoor.  Lodmoor is about 4 miles along the coast from the Discovery Centre and really easy to find.  Both of the car parks for the RSPB sites in Weymouth are council owned so make sure you take change with you.  The worse part it deciding how long you think you are going to stay!

I decided to walk the Marsh Trail and the Reedbed Trail which join together to make a loop.  One of my first sightings was a Canada Goose sat on a nest on an island fairly close to the path, it was nice to see. There were quite a few people out in the reserve, so I walked on until I found a free bench to sit on.  I could see, over to the left a small flock of Black-tailed Godwits but they flew off before I could get a proper look.  They did fly back over later and I managed to grab a quick photograph.

I was suddenly aware of movement to my left and a Rabbit hopped out of the grass, it didn’t seem bothered by me which is always concerning.  As I walked passed it only moved a few feet, it looked like it had been hit in the head, but I am more inclined to think it had Mixamytosis 🙁

It was a lovely sunny day though and as I moved along the Reedbed Trail I became aware of the Swallows that were flying overhead, my first sighting this year 🙂

There were about 20 House Sparrows darting in and out of the hedgerow opposite the houses and Blackbirds that kept hoping about on the grass.  All afternoon there was one bird that I heard continually, I had no idea what it was but was sure I was being stalked by it!! I would think I heard approx. 10+ of them on the site.  I am still in the very early stages of learning bird song’s but this one I will now remember – a Cetti’s Warbler! 

I ended my afternoon with a quick walk across the road to the beach, no trip to the coast would be right without seeing the sea 🙂

My full sightings list:
Birds: Canada Goose (1 on nest), Shelduck, Coot, Little Egret, Mute Swan, Moorhen, Black-tailed Godwit, Mallards, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Blackbird, Dunnock, Pochard, Teal,  Gadwall, Woodpigeon, Tufted Duck, Cormorant, Goldfinch, Magpie, Great Tit, Swallow, Grey Heron, Carrion Crow, heard Cetti’s Warbler, Black-headed Gull
Mammals: Rabbit
Butterflies: Speckled Wood