Friday 30 March 2012

Dog's life

There's still no sign of anything happening with my 'followed' tree. The topmost buds of nearby ash trees are swollen and ready to burst, but my hedge ash is unchanged - unmoved by what looks, smells and sounds like spring to me.
But there's a lot going on around it. Hawthorn is coming into leaf and, around the ash's roots, the dog's mercury now has flowers. They're rather modest flowers and, so I read, have an unpleasant smell - not that I can detect it.
Dog's mercury is really a woodland floor plant, but a strip of it grows along the base of our garden hedge. Once the ash is in leaf it's an area that is nearly as shaded as the woodland floor would be.
I don't usually give it much attention, but as my tree was doing nothing I thought I'd read up on dog's mercury and now know that it is dog's mercury because it was said to be fit only for dog's.
Which is probably a good thing as it is one of Britain's more dangerous plants. Fit for dogs, dangerous to humans. The 17th Century herbalist Nicholas Culpepper said of it: 'There is not a more fatal plant, native of our country, than this.' Not one to pick up on any foraging expedition then.  

Thursday 29 March 2012

Image problem

Photo: John Holmes
Attitudes change over time. I've been writing a weekly column about gardens and wildlife for Garden News since the last 1990s, which means that over the years I've had lots of readers' letters. 
For the most part people write about problems or to share strong feelings they have about garden wildlife. Going back a few years one recurring theme was 'bullying' starlings. The gist of the gripe was that small birds didn't get a look in at bird tables and feeders because they were deterred by aggressive groups of starlings.
People seem to like to categorise birds (and other garden wildlife too for that matter) into the good and bad, like Western characters. And starlings were bad guys.
But I haven't had one of these anti-starling letters for a while now. Is it that the British public has learned to tolerate starling 'rowdiness'? Possibly, but it may also be that there just aren't so many starlings around these days.
More than half a million people took part in this winter's Big Garden Birdwatch counting the birds in their garden on a day in January. Starlings were still there to be counted, but the average number per garden was just three compared with an average of 15 in 1979.
Over the same time the numbers of blue tits per garden has gone up by 21 per cent. Perhaps it's time for British gardeners to start putting up starling nestboxes?

Friday 23 March 2012

What caterpillar?

Found on concrete down by the dustbin - and a long way from vegetation of any kind - one lime-green caterpillar. Actually, lime green doesn't cover it. More a late 1980s electro-pop fluorescent green.
A quick trawl through the ID sites Google has to offer and my best guess is that it is a Speckled Wood (Parage aegeria), although I'd be interested to hear otherwise.
Photo: Franz Xaver
It does makes sense that it could be because we did have lots of speckled woods around last summer. I sent my find on its way in some grass at the base of the hedge, a better bet I think than the dustbin.




Monday 19 March 2012

Another first

Definitely a red letter day - I've just heard my first chiffchaff of the year. It's a marvellous morning here, with warm sunshine, but a covering of frost in the shadows. Before starting work I thought I'd check out my 'followed' tree, which is showing no sign whatsoever of coming to life.
But it's surrounded by other species that are. The buds on field maple and hawthorn saplings nearby are just beginning to burst open and the hedge bank is now covered in dog's mercury.
And to cap it all the chiffchaff. I've mislaid my 2011 diary, so can't say when I heard last year's first chiffchaff, but it does seem early.

Saturday 17 March 2012

Buzzing out there

We've been stuck in dank, dreary cloud for days here, while everybody else has had sun. It's cold and so damp that the car struggles to start.
But this morning the  mist has lifted, or been blown away, and spring is back. Walking through the garden it's great to see how many insects there are about already. 
www.abugblog.blogspot.co.uk
But no sign of ladybirds, yet. That doesn't seem to be the case in Hull, where entomologist Africa Gomez blogs about her garden at BugBlog. I really like Africa's blog because I usually learn something from her posts.
Her thoughts on early pollinators are interesting. I think that maybe most of us gardeners are a bit too limited in our idea of what pollinators are - we think of bees, but not much else.
In Africa's garden ladybirds and flies are busy now feeding at spurge flowers. This is one of her excellent pictures.
I think most people tend to categorise garden invertebrates as 'good bugs' or 'bad bugs' and the 'good' list is usually a pretty short one. Flies don't usually rate as useful, but this picture says something different.
We don't usually think of flies, bluebottles and, later in the year, wasps as helpful. But they're all making a contribution.

Saturday 10 March 2012

Garden star

What a difference some sunshine makes. A warm sunny morning and I've been at the end of the garden tidying up around the shed. Or rather using the a bit of tidying as an excuse to get away from the house and enjoy some peace and quiet.
While I've been working I've been listening to the birdsong, breaking off to watch from time to time. And the magic moment of the morning came when a little group of bullfinches appeared, moving along the hedge that forms the boundaries of the properties along our road.
markmedcalfphotography.com
Over the last couple of seasons a pair of bullfinches have nested in the next-door but one garden and seeing them, and later the fledglings, has been a highlight of the year. They have been the stars of oour summer.
The property they've nested in has been standing empty for a couple of years and the garden had become a tangle of brambles and hawthorn. But during the winter new owners have had builders in to refurbish the house and they used a digger to clear the garden. 
What will the bullfinches do? It will be interested to see if they can live with the changes to their territory, or if they move elsewhere. Meanwhile though, it's great to see them back.
When the group broke up on male sat singing in the branches of "my" tree in full sun. The richness of his rose-pink plumage was really something to see; marvellous to see, though I cursed the fact that I didn't have my camera with me.

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Going for gold

Not many goldfinches here this winter. I've filled the feeders up with all the things they like, but for the most part the goldfinch has been a no-show.
Which makes the results of the BTO's 2011 Garden BirdWatch interesting reading. Its volunteer garden birders keep track of the species they see throughout the year and feed their data back to BTO HQ, where the numbers are crunched.
And in 2011 the goldfinch registered the biggest change in status of all the GBW species. It's now No. 10 in the GBW rankings, compared to No. 20 when the survey began in 1995. Back in the 1990s goldfinches visited one garden in 10. In 2011 it was two out of three.
Apparently the change reflects a change in both population and behaviour; the national population is a little bigger than it was but goldfinches are also far more ready to visit garden feeders.
The BTO says that's probably because garden feeder design has improved and because more of us put out the sort of foods goldfinches like, such as sunflower hearts and nyger seed. You can read all about 2011 Garden BirdWatch here




Tuesday 6 March 2012

Bird watching

A perfect March morning here today, with warm sunshine quickly melting the hoar frost. I've been busy cleaning out the children's pet rabbits and have been watched all the while by a female blackbird.
She took up position in the branches of the hawthorn hedge to soak up the best of the sun's heat and seemed completely unphased by my comings and goings. Even when I got to within a yard or so the blackbird seemed untroubled.
I presume this bird is the one that I've seem with a male in around the hedge by our pond over the last week or so. He has been sticking very close to her, following her like he's her shadow.
No sign of the male this morning. Just the female along, dozing in the warmth and watching me work.