Wildlife & Gardens

Nutty, with added texture from the tennis ball.

 

Whilst out calling Ford Dante Perikles Coleridge in for his breakfast at 7.10am this morning I saw a lesser spotted woodpecker arrive on the feeders.
What a thrill as I hadn't seen one before!

 

Are you sure? Lesser Spotted are quite rare, but great if true.

 

Well no I'm not sure but it was about the size of a starling/blackbird.

 

Great spotted are much more common, but still nice to see close up.

 

I've just had a check and RSPB says lesser is the size of a sparrow and great the size of a Daphne so probably a great on reflection!
As I hadn't seen either I'm happy!
Lots of green in Letty Green,oddly enough.

 

Hideous, hideous goings on.
Utterly deplorable the way they treat the planet and all its inhabitants, their own included.
Joyous sight driving to the club on Saturday.
The house martins who have a colony in a lovely house on the green at Letty Green were out in force at 8am.
This was excellent but what made it special was they were swooping in time to the William Tell Overture being played on Classic FM!
Stunning.

 

I think what you have there is a Norwegian Blue. Beautiful plumage.

 

"Resting?"

 

Our neighbour used to feed the foxes. We complained to her because they became so dependent they used our garden as a chill out area, destroying planted areas while they waited their supper. Other neighbours have dogs that keep the foxes out but provide them with play value as they look down on the mutts from our shed.

She started hand feeding the cubs and seemed excited when they would invite themselves into her house when the french windows were open. Even when one was disturbed upstairs, she did not murmur.

When her cctv caught them beheading her cat, I think that’s when things went sour. Anyway persuading foxes that they are successful hunters and best at keeping the local vermin population down in the suburbs, rather than dining out on high protein convenience food is proving harder than I thought. They now have taken to climbing onto a flat roof and eating grapes from a vine. Might have to consider the dog option at this rate.

Wasps on the other hand I am prepared to give a bit of leeway too. Have a nest under the roof tiles near a Velux window. Our neighbour is very worried about it and wants me to get it destroyed. Is she overreacting. Are they likely to swoop down to kill her new cat?

 

Never seen this before in Bushey. Was in the garden, a Jersey Tiger Moth, must be moving north as a result of global warming. Quite a lovely thing flying around the garden. Has orange underwings.

https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/jersey-tiger

 

I'm the opposite. We feed our foxes and have about 4 different individuals visiting the garden. Cats and foxes are well known to happily co-exist and indeed walk past each other at a distance in our garden. They don't come close to the house, and run away if they do see me in our garden which is for the best. Whilst a fox could probably kill a cat, the chances of injury would be high which in the wild could cause death so it seems they are too large to take the risk. Perhaps for your neighbour the fox cubs were getting too close to her, the cat got jealous and went for the cubs whose parents then stepped in to protect them ?

Wasps - a real nuisance. Been stung many times and never by a wasp I've seen before it stung me. Every summer we have at least one nest in the garden which I take pleasure in eliminating. Its not possible to eat in the garden from August onwards.

 

Bees do not bother me at all and I am quite happy to stand around and watch them doing their stuff
around the wild flowers in my garden . Wasps OTOH !

BTW I have only just taken to gardening in the last few years and I am still at the plant and hope
stage !!. However the sweetcorn has been a massive success this year !!

 

To be honest i quite likeD watching the vixen and cubs in the garden. It is only my gardeners intolerance to the plants ruined by their digging and the ones squashed that they sleep on. Even the fox crap is a manageable nuisance.

We once had a few rats running through the garden as she feeds the birds too. I put out traps, caught a few and felt quite guilty about it. The traps caught a couple of birds and mice. That was when i took the traps away. As long as i cant see them or evidence of them near the house thats fine.

If the foxes could just sleep on the grass that would help!

 

You might want to protect the sweet corn. On our allotment they quickly get eaten by squirrels as they ripen up

 

Viz got it right.

 

absolutely !

 

This. Bastards got every single one of mine last year.

 

Came down this morning to find a munjac asleep in the top part of the garden about 30 yards from the house. It woke up and just watched us though the window for 30 mins without getting up. I got worried that maybe it was hurt by a dog and couldn't move so went out. I had a bit of a chat with it and got maybe 40 feet from it before it got to its feet and wandered off. Got some great head shots with my large canon camera.

 

Seems a bit excessive. I’d imagine an air rifle would have been sufficient, and made less mess.

 

For the record I am the most amateurish of gardeners however every morning
I inspect the garden and it is one of life's pleasures.
Slugs get removed not killed and black fly etc I let nature take its course .
I do wish however that I got the garden bug a bit earlier.

 

Wasps eat aphids so they're welcome here.

 

I'll happily put up with the aphids.....which the flocks of 30+ mixed fit flock would happily demolish.

 

Wasps also eat bees, they're not welcome here

 

30+ mixed *** flock? We have plenty too and they eat their fair share but the wasps are ravenous towards aphids so I'm okay with them.

We have plenty of bees too. Solitary ones nest in the house and I plant plenty for them away from where the wasps seem to congregate, the hedge behind the back garden which isn't ours. It all seems to work without too much interference.

 

Yes, it's a great spectacle. I have some 20 port sunflower heart feeders plus 2 suet feeders and nuts but they can't all fit at the same time so the others wait in the alder and buddleia and swoop in when a slot comes free. A mix of the 4 common t1ts but we get marsh t1ts too in the winter. At the moment there are a couple of chiffchaffs associating with the flock but being insect eaters, they don't quite get what the fuss is about. An hour later there'll be another huge flock and I don't know if it's the same one or if there are several that size.
Also get flocks of 20+ goldfinches. It's carnage when they arrive at the same time as the t1t flock !

 

That sounds fantastic!

I used to have a similar amount of sunflower feeders but the goldfinches dropped so much food it started attracting too many pigeons. We'd have over 30 feral ones waiting on the roof of our house and both neighbours too, it became a bit of a problem mess wise.

These days I've only 4 tray feeders in cages for the ****, dunnocks, nuthatches, robins and the occasional wren and just a single 4 port feeder for the finches. The pigeons have all but disappeared thankfully. I've managed to lure a pair of wagtails too and have a ground feeder cage with dried mealworms near the back door just for them. They don't come until the temperature drops so in summer it's unused but come the chilly days in autumn, winter and spring they're happy to sit and watch the other birds while sitting on their little perches and nip under the feeders for bits & pieces before digging into their worms.

I've also fitted a CCTV camera onto the gate post and fixed it up to the kitchen TV so I can watch the action all day if I'm here. It's the most used channel now!

 

Nice of it to wear our new kit

 

Most of our feeders are caged so pigeons can only get the spilt seeds. Also we regularly get sparrowhawk regularly so the whole feeding station is under an arch netted off with chicken wire which protects the birds and increases their numbers. Have wildlife cameras for the foxes, deer and badgers.