Anything New to Report?

[LoftyLottie]

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Animals-and-Nat ure/Question561683-2.html


I have goldcrests nesting in the garden and I am absolutely thrilled.

[yogasun]

Wow LoftyLottie, that's just brilliant. They are wonderful birds. We had a badger in the garden last night, it's not so hot today here. The dawn chorus has been magnificent and the bluebells in the local woods are just spectacular.

[LoftyLottie]

Hello yogasun. Not so hot here today. I have been cultivating a large wildlife garden over the years and yesterday I was sawing down the undergrowth on a smalla path through the woodland area I have created. Am putting down a windy footpath of sawn logs. I was assisted in my work by a robin! It was so hot - I should have left it until today.

I love being outside at this time of year when everything is happening. Not so keen on July and August!

We don't get many badgers around here, but we do have quite a lot of deer at the back of us. I would love some badgers.

I hope Raysparx pops in to see us. He inspires me!!

[yogasun]

Hi again, I know this not meant to be for chatter but somehow as a thread it's nice to leave it in Animals & Nature and hope others bear with us! Your garden sounds great. We have left part of ours for wildlife, the grass is long and we've put in a pond. It's amazing how it attracts the butterflies. We tried to encourage ladybirds last year by using a special box and buying the larvae/eggs(?)(I forget) but think they got waterlogged. Yes, where's ray?!

[LoftyLottie]

I think chatter threads like this are OK in Animals and Nature. Sort of questions anyway, as we all learn from others. It's nice to encourage wildlife isn't it. I have almost stopped growing conventional flowers and now concentrate on just having a large wildlife garden and a few nice colourful flowers in pots and climbing roses, honeysuckles around the cottage. Mind you, wildlife gardens aren't as easy as they sound. They take a lot of upkeep too, as they can easily get swamped under the less desirable cover. It has taken me years to almost eradicate ground elder!!

[burnhal]

Lucky you to have goldcrests! The only pair nesting in my garden are blackbirds- in the ivy on the patio (cultered title for an area where everything gets dumped! However within a garden each side there are goldcrests, robins, blue tits, dunnocks, collared doves and chaffinches nesting and probably more. I get them all as I provide the dining room!! Frogs are in residence in the pond- they seem to hang around for a month or three after breeding. No badgers(have to walk a mile or so to sit on the sett to watch them) but had a fox walking along the top of the garden fence yesterday morning- 6ft high wooden fence- looked a bit incongruous as its normally the squirrels doing that! Loads of butterflies at the moment- particularly blues. Bats flying around in the evening- when my etector arrives I will find out which type- look too big to be pipistrelles.
Not too bad really for Luton!

[alfieblue]

Oh! what a lovely chat, thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

We have a variety of birds in the garden - yellow beak the blackbird is still going well - he is fairly old but so tame. Quite a character!!! Before we got pup yellow beak was fed grapes, he would come and wait for them. Would follow me into the kitchen!!!

Now we have pup, have to be careful with t he grapes, as poisonous to doggies.

So I now lob them over next doors fence!!!! Works well!! Yellow beak is happy and pup stays safe!!!! Also lob the odd spider over the fence as could never kill them. Think they parachute down quite happily!!! Neaighbours are none the wiser!!!!

Im a bit of a devil as I get older!!! We also have fox;s and hoggies, and wonderful selection of little birds. The foals are thriving in the forest .

Field mice are busy and all is well. Have netted the pond to stop mr. heron from feasting on the fish.

What a beautiful day!!!

[yogasun]

burnhal - that's brilliant. We also provide all the food for the birds, black sunflower seeds regularly need refilling.
We get loads and loads of birds in our garden. Neighbours say.... 'Why do you get all those birds' ? Have lost count of the number of times I've explained that it's a lot to do with the fact that we have lots of tall shrubs and three flowering cherry trees in our front garden, thus providing adequate cover. Their gardens are manicured with little vegetation above head height and they are always permanently clipping stuff. We have a mixed hedge, mainly hawthorn which is only cut in February. I think we have blackbirds nesting and that's all this year.
Herring Gulls are a bit of a pain in this area but half the problem is that people leave black bags out instead of putting them in dustbins.
We are lucky to live near to the River Axe with all its birdlife. Will post again when there is something to report. Got to get ready for work :-((

[Cetti]

I echo the lovely, lovely wildlife chat and thought it would be good to have a Nature Blog, where we could all put something we thought may be interesting to others - and LoftieLottie's gone and done it. Good on yer, LL!!!

Sunday was very special. We cycle round a disused airfield and every time it's exciting, wondering what (if anything) will appear. The Rookery was in full throttle with a couple mimicking Buzzards, then the real thing flew by causing them all to erupt in furious indignation. All around Skylarks were singing and doing their 'parachute' display, while a couple of Ravens gave a gruff bark in passing. Two Brown Hares were sitting in a field dozing, when a female Hen Harrier swooped down and sent them loping off somewhere quieter. Today I've been watching two Woodies canoodling in the Silver Birch. So sweet!

[burnhal]

splendid idea- if someone can be designated to kick of a new thread for the nature blog on say Sunday evening that would be brilliant. The nature of my work means I talk to hardly anyone during the day and its nice to share what has been seen!!

[raysparx1]

Hi LoftyLottie and everybody else who loves the beauty that surrounds us, your words are very kind, thank you. xx,,

you are very lucky to have those birds nesting so close to you, and the garden sounds brilliant
I hope the badgers do visit you, they have a bad name in parts, but I love them .

The last couple of days all has been fairly quiet, hope to soon be getting closer look at the buzzards that are nesting in or behind the gorse bushes ibn the field, I walked along the river yesterday, and the sun glinting on the water made the course of the river so enchanting and at the bend of it you felt you had to carry on to see what lies beyond ,, so quiet yet if you stop and listen is it really that quiet? bees buzzing, lambs bleating, plop in the water a trout just jumped, i know who he is and one day I will catch him, but do I want to catch him? I do and I don't he is beautiful and very clever, he tempts me like the mouse does the cat, but he is too clever, if I ever do catch him, could I eat him? NO, he will go back to tease some other poor fool, but deep down I hope I never do catch my now friend. House martins and the blackbirds are busy, the blackbirds song is so sweet, I love to lay in the grass with my eyes shut and take in all that is around me, very sadly a sheep lays dead in the field today, and the magpies and crows are busy feasting already, what would we do without these birds? I know they are hated and can be very aggresive, but they clean the roads and help natures train to keep on track. speak to you all soon I hope,

It really would be great to have a chat like this every week, I used to stay out of this section cos I was bit scared of you lot, but would like to thank you all for being really nice people, take care all, Ray

[alfieblue]

Ray! You are mega! Don't ever stop writing your wonderful nature experiences on this site. Love reading your nature news.

We can all share in the wonder of nature - I love it. :o) Gotta go now and sort dinner out, else it will burn!!! Kids are used to that!!! Take care and keep writing!!!!

[LoftyLottie]

Thank you so much for your lovely replies. By the way, Cetti, you must thank Ray for starting this off with his lovely question. I am just following his suggestion to keep things going. I have enjoyed reading through this thread. Glad you found us Ray.

I also volunteer at a local Hawk and Owl trust reserve. It's just fabulous. I only do a few hours but I am learning such a lot about all sorts of birds, butterflies and mammals.

At the moment nesting in our garden I have@:

Blackbirds, robins, tree sparrows, dunnocks, swallows, partridge, goldcrest, woodpigeons and collared doves. Fortunately, my cat doesn't seem particularly interested in birds and hates it when the blackbirds torment her! Woodpeckers are nesting in my neighbours gardens and I look forward to when they bring their babies down to feed. They are better than clowns when it comes to a comedy show.

You are so right alfieblue about the perfectly manicured gardens with nothing for shelter. I have neighbours with one of those and they just hate my garden!! They cut their beautiful flowering cherry down because it made a mess on the lawn when the blossom fell!!

I have loads of high hedges and bushes and have planted lots of things specifically for birds, bees and butterflies. I have been well rewarded.

Do you know alfieblue, one of our old dogs simply loved grapes. In fact I think he loved all fruit and veg. He prefered it to dog food. This was a few years back and I didn't realise at that time that grapes and sultanas were poisonous to dogs. He ate loads. He was a big dog and lived until he was nearly 14! He obviously was an extremely lucky dog!!

We really must keep this nature blog going.

[alfieblue]

Oh yes - this is lovely!!! My neighbours are the same, hate the birds!!! Everything has to be just so!!! Meanwhile, we encourage the wild life - could spend hours just sitting in the garden watching the birds, the field mice etc etc.

Oh dear! I have burnt the diinner - got to go!!!! Ho hum!!! Looking forward to more of these nature chats - its really uplifting! Love to hear all the news!! Just got to go now and scrape a few sausages and sort out the veggies!!!

[bensmum]

I have a large garden and since I hate gardening the edges have been let to go wild. I have shrubs, blackberry bushes, nettles and long grass as well as trees and my reward is the amunt of wildlife I see. I have lots of birds nesting but not goldcrests unfortunately - you are very lucky. The long-tailed tits are still around and I have several robins who are so tame - they get really close. I also see the nuthatch regularly at the nut feeder as well as the usual blackbirds, finches, various tits and woodpeckers. We do get buzzards overhead and sparrowhawks and there was a heron in the garden the other morning.
I don't see badgers in the garden - unfortunately the only one I have seen this year was dead at the side of the road as so often happens. We have foxes, rabbits, hedgehogs, deer, squirrels and the occasional enterprising rat.
I love watching all the comings and goings in the garden - so much better than all the manicured lawns and decking that people seem so keen on. They don't know what they are missing

[tigerlily11]

Oh lovely Lofty. Lucky u.

[LoftyLottie]

Ben's Mum. Your garden is my ideal! You have to believe this - our next door neighbour threatened to shoot our visiting heron because he might take off with one of his goldfish from his neat little pond! I was ready to report him! He has already shot lots of little leverets because they scratch the bark of his miniature fruit trees.

As for decking -well I suppose it has it's uses in some places, but the rats would think we had built them a lovely apartment and live underneath it where I live!!

Also, why do so many people dig up their gardens and pave them over! I heard recently that some councils are bringing in laws to forbid this as surface water is unable to drain into the ground naturally and is running of into the drains, causing great problems.

[Jules001]

ooh you are so lucky Loftylottie, I was only lucky enough to see a goldcrest for the first time a couple of weeks ago, couldn't believe it as I have lived in my house for 20 years and have never seen one. I have a pair of binoculars and a notebook in my kitchen and I record each species of bird I see each day it's not scientific as I don't record male or females or how many, just the species and I have been doing this since Feb 2007 - it is really interesting to see how you get regular little visitors. I love the thrill of seeing a new bird in my garden, this year my new visitors have been siskins, a pair of long tailed tits and a pair of blackcaps and the goldcrest. Nothing has been tempted by my nest box which has been up for well over a year. I regularly get several ring necked parakeets which I know are not native, but are still beautiful and fun to watch. Maybe someone more knowledgeable could offer an explanation as to why birds are not coming into my garden as often at the moment, I do have magpies nesting in a conifer and have seen them chase off the starlings when they try to come and feed, but wondered whether their presence would put off other species. I still have lots of sparrows, robin and some tits (blue, great and coal) but the long tailed ones have gone and even the blackbirds rarely put in an appearance at the moment, I would have thought even if there is enough natural food for them I would still see them around, I can hear them, but they're not coming in (maybe they are but not when I am watching!) I did find a fox in the conifer on Saturday I think he had been trying to get the magpie eggs and got stuck, we were trying to put a plank of wood against the tree to help him down, but he took flight and legged it into next door's garden, the birds have been a little more noticeable since he went too, so that may have something to do with it.

[KRUSTYMAN]

Sorry for this pretty boring report but I am really chuffed. For the last 5/6 years I've had a blue tit nesting box and a robin nest box in my back garden. I've not seen hide nor hair of a bird even considering taking up residence and this year in fact I even toyed with the idea of tearing them down. However, I persevered and a couple of weeks ago a couple of Robins started building a nest in the nest box and as a result 5 chicks have hatched this week and to date all are doing well. In fact I bored the whole family rigid tonight by persuading them all to sit and watch footage that I'd recorded today of the parents flying back and forward bringing food and tacking away the fecal sacs. Amazing and beautiful creatures!

[LoftyLottie]

Jules, I find that once the birds have made their nests and are sitting on the eggs for long periods then they do not come to the feeders so often and are not seen as much. They were feeding like mad a week or so ago and demolishing everything as soon as I put it out for them. This week the food is hanging around for much longer.

They are definitely cautious when magpies and jays are around because they steal their eggs and young birds from the nests.

I too keep binoculars on a windowsill, together with various bird books and notebook and pencil to record the species that visit (but like you I don't record the numbers or sexes of the birds). Two years ago we had moorhens nesting about 6' up in the hedgerow!!

My two nest boxes have been visited but not used by the blue tits they were intended for, but sparrows have takenup residence.

I chuckled when I read about the fox stuck up the tree and your plank of wood to help him down. That's the sort of thing we do :o). I live right out in the middle of the country and never see a live fox. Occasionally we see them dead on the roadside :o(. Its strange isn't it, people in towns have foxes all around them and are lucky enough to see them all the time in their gardens. I love foxes.

[LoftyLottie]

Not at all boring KRUSTYMAN. That's absolutely lovely. I hope your robin family all do well. I spend ages watching 'my' birds and even talk to them when I am out in the garden. Found myself having conversations with the robin quite a lot yesterday as he watched me in the garden!