Winter came . . . and went!

February is proving to be a very odd month this year. There has been very little precipitation in this area, either rain or snow. Reservoirs are very low and the water companies are talking about a hosepipe ban very soon.

There was very little sign of winter until a couple of weeks ago when we got a covering of snow - only about 2 cms. Enough to look pretty for a while.



The temperatures went down to -12C for a couple of nights. The following week the temperatures were up again to +12C during the daytime. Last week they reached a balmy high of 16C - very unusual for February.

These extremes are having an interesting effect on the wildlife. Two hares have been cavorting round the garden in "Mad March Hare" style, or should it be "Mad February Hare" style? Mr Pheasant has been harassing the Mrs, showing off his beautiful colours and chasing her around the lawn. There were badgers out and about on the roads last night when I was driving home, sadly one of them had been hit by a car :(



I have never understood why, but in February we seem to get larger numbers of roe deer in the garden. A few weeks ago, I counted six of them. It's a pity that I could only capture three of them in this photo.

A large flock of redwings also passed through. There must have been at least two dozen of them. On the same day, I spotted some Lapwings in the field at the front. They did not come into the garden but it is the first time I have seen them around here. Too far away for a good photo, unfortunately.

Finally, I have been working very hard on my new web site. My English Country Garden web site (www.english-country-garden.com) is looking a bit old fashioned and in need of a refresh. I have been rebuilding the site with a new design including some new photo galleries. It is proving to be a big job. The web site has more than 500 pages and it is a lot of work to transfer all of them to the new design. It will not be completed for some weeks yet but watch this space for the relaunch!

Pesky Woodpeckers

This has been one of the warmest Januaries on record in this part of the UK. Although we have had a few hard frosts, it has generally been remarkably warm. Great news from the point of view of heating bills.

Earlier in the month we had a lot of high winds, so bad that a tree was brought down in the garden.

On closer inspection, the tree was full of holes obviously made by woodpeckers. I don't know whether the tree was rotten inside when the woodpeckers decided to nest there, or whether the woodpecker holes caused the tree to rot?

A fallen tree is always a useful source of fuel for our wood burning stove and it was not a very pretty tree, anyway. Luckily it did not fall on anything.

Just outside our kitchen window we have a two storey luxury bird box. The great tits had been showing great interest in it until an incident last week. I had been out all day and when I arrived home was shocked to see that a woodpecker had completely wrecked the box! It had obviously been busy all day enlarging the holes. They are now so big that you could fit a tennis ball through the holes. Completely ruined for nesting great tits :(

I cannot understand why the woodpecker would do this. At this time of year there was obviously nothing nesting yet (I don't think so, anyway). I am wondering if the woodpeckers themselves are planning to move into the box. That would be interesting.


The sparrowhawk is still making life difficult for the little birds around the feeders. As I have mentioned before, it is a little stupid sitting on the garden chair waiting for the little birds to appear. The little ones have more sense than that.

It appears to be getting more desparate, however, and we have seen it on several occasions try to chase the little ones into the bushes. Of course, it's size does not allow it to get in among the branches, so it usually leaves empty-beaked.

Today, I managed to grab a photo. It is not a good one because it was late afternoon and the light was fading. But, at least you can see it is a male with a grey back and reddish stripes on the chest.

It is February tomorrow and the forecast is cold with possible snow on the way. We have not had any snow yet this year. It has been a strange winter. There are daffodils, snowdrops and primroses flowering and some of the bluebells are even several inches high.

Merry Christmas!

I have been seriously lax in keeping up to date with this blog in recent weeks. I hope to remedy that in 2012. We were away for a couple of weeks in November - a wildlife holiday of course. So, I would like to start with one of my holiday snaps. This was definitely NOT taken in my garden!



This harrassed mother had 3 cubs, just a few weeks old. The runt of the litter could not keep up with the others so Mum kept giving it a helping hand, or should I say mouth.

Well, back in the UK, life in the garden has been busy as usual. The weather has been very changeable but not particularly cold. November was apparently one of the warmest on record around these parts. It is causing confusion with the plants, of course. We had primroses flowering in November and some daffodils are in bud at the moment.

There has been plenty of fungi around but not as many as last year. Unusually, there have been huge numbers of Trooping Funnels (Clitocybe geotropa), not only in the garden but all around the village.



Trooping funnels are large mushrooms with a cap that can be up to about 8 inches (20 cms) diameter. As the name suggests they grow in large rings or "troops". They are apparently edible but I don't advise eating any fungus without first checking with an expert.



2011 has been a good year for squirrels. There are dozens of them, all very hyperactive, running up and down trees and along fences. Luckily there are plenty of acorns to keep them away from the bird feeders.

Talking of bird feeders, in the last couple of weeks we have had a regular (unwelcome) visitor - a sparrowhawk. It sits on top of the bird feeder, which is a bit stupid because, of course, all the little birds fly off and hide.

The deer have been a bit elusive recently, although we have seen the Roe Deer twins, those born this year, in the field in front of our house. A couple of muntjacs have also been foraging in the garden - a female with a youngster.

Sadly it is not going to be a white Christmas this year, but I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2012.

Astonishing October

There are definitely big changes in the weather patterns compared to previous years. Whether or not this is due to global warming is yet to be proven. This October has seen some very pleasant weather with above average temperatures and just a couple of frosts. The result is beautiful autumn colours with most of the leaves still on the trees. In addition, there are shrubs flowering which normally only flower in springtime (Kerria Japonica and Ceanothus). Here are a couple of photos.








Also, one of the primula that I mentioned in my previous post has been flowering, Primula Vialli - very pretty.




October is normally a month of misty sunrises, when the ground is wet and the nights cold. Very few of those this month, but here is one of them.



The birds have been hyperactive this month, feeding frantically on the feeders. In their exuberance, they sometimes overshoot and hit the window. This happened to a little long-tailed tit. He/she was a bit stunned and I stood by waiting for him to recover in case any predators decided to have a tasty meal. Great opportunity for a close-up photo which is not normally possible with these shy little creatures. This is probably my favourite bird.




We changed the clocks today. Nice to have an extra hour in bed, but the evenings are now very dark. Hibernation seems a very attractive option. I am so looking forward to next spring.

In the meantime we will have to make do with the beautiful autumn colours, here is a shot across the valley and over the garden fence. If the wind does not take the leaves off soon, I think the colours will become even more spectacular.

Surprising September!

This month has certainly been interesting. It is going out with some superb weather in the mid-twenties centigrade which is very unusual for this time of year. I guess it cuts down on heating bills.

I am always busy in September when we have visitors from the north. This year we were able to entertain them with some obliging badgers.

I have been quietly watching the badger sett in the woods next door for most of the summer. Sadly, several weeks ago, I spotted some undesirables out shooting in the woods. I was not just concerned with my own safety but I did not want these guys to find the badger sett. So, I decided I should stay in my own garden to watch the badgers.

I have been putting out peanuts each evening, spread over a wide area. The badgers pass by at a very regular time and we have been watching from our conservatory. They literally "hoover" up the peanuts. There are 2 of them, one from the sett in the woods to the east (with a vertical line down his snout) and one from the sett in the woods to the west (with a spot on its nose). Unfortunately, every time I set up the camera and try to trigger it remotely, they get spooked, so no decent photos.

The roe deer family have been more obliging...



A week or so ago, Mum and twins were all on the front lawn. The twins are both boys which you may be able to see from the photos. Their little antlers are just pushing through.

These photos were taken through the window, so are not the best. Just opening the window to take the shots, would have made them flee.




I also recently visited a local garden centre in a quest to find more summer-flowering pretty flowers which the deer will not eat. Someone suggested Pentestemmon which I had never tried before so I bought some to give it a go. So far, they have not been touched by the deer. Hopefully, next summer we may have more colour during the summer months.

I noticed a long time ago that the deer don't eat Primula. The primroses in our garden run rampant in the spring but I did not know how many pretty types of primula there are. We visited Armadale Castle and Dunvegan Castle Gardens on the Isle of Skye in Scotland this year. They had some wonderful displays of primula (primula vialii, primula bulleyana, primula beesiana, etc). I have planted some this year and hopefully they will do as well in the garden as their native cousins.

Finally, the buzzards and red kites are continuing to thrive. They do their best to avoid posing for the camera, but I did get one reasonable photo this week.

Deer, Deer and More Deer!

This year, unlike last, we have apples on the apples trees. This means that our garden is a choice destination for the deer who love to eat the windfalls. They are backwards and forwards all day (and probably all night) feasting on the apples.

The other evening there were four muntjacs under the trees and, interestingly, another muntjac fawn. It was definitely not the fawn I spotted last week. This one was much bigger and without its spots. However, it was still suckling and very demanding on its mother. So, there must be at least two families of muntjacs around this year.

Sadly, it was too dark for decent photographs.

However, Mrs Roe and the Twins have also been hanging around much of the time. The twins are getting big now, almost as big as their Mum and their spots are just fading. They are about 3-4 months old now. I did not manage any good shots of the three of them together, but the other evening as it was getting dark Mum and one of the twins were in the field at the front. I got the following photos.










The middle photo is quite amusing. The mother has an apple and some grass in her mouth and the little one is pulling at a piece of grass!

You need to click on the images to see larger versions.

Flash Photography

I have reached a stage in my photography where I don't feel I can improve until I have mastered flash and lighting in general. So often there is not enough natural light to take the photos I want.

So, I recently booked myself on a Lighting Fundamentals course run by Shutterbug Training (http://www.shutterbugtraining.co.uk/). James Stone, who runs the course, is very knowledgeable but above all he is able to impart his knowledge in simple terms - ideal for people like myself.

The course was excellent and I came home with a much better understanding of lighting and lots of ideas that I wanted to try.

Sadly this time of year in our garden is very boring. Hardly anything is flowering. I was desperate to find something to practise on so ended up picking some Bird's Foot Trefoil which was growing wild in the grass. The photo above is one of my early efforts. I am quite pleased with it and certainly could not have taken a photo as good as this before taking the lighting course.

As soon as I found a rose flowering, I pounced for more practise with the following result.



I have continued to watch the badgers for the last few weeks. The little baby is fearless and follows a trail of peanuts to where I set up my camera, with this result...



The roe deer twins are doing well. The farmer has cut the grass in the field out front and we can now see them when they are browsing in the field. They regularly come up to the fence to eat the blackberries. There are thousands of blackberries this year. I have been picking them every weekend and more keep coming.

Last week, I was very excited to catch a glimpse of a new baby muntjac. Very tiny, it is probably two or three weeks old and Mum is very protective. No chance for a photo, yet!

There were three hares on the front lawn yesterday, one of them a younster. Sadly, I found a young one dying in the garden today. I don't know what was wrong with it.

Finally, today there were dozens of dragonflies swooping around in the back garden enjoying the sunshine. I can never identify dragonflies without getting a photo and there was no chance of photos today.