hedgehog ..!

Day 308 #365DaysWild

Don't ever give up hoping.

The last record of a hedgehog here was in 2017. Seven years ago.

They are:

Killed on roads.

Poisoned with pesticides.

Blocked from roaming by our walls and fences.

Predated by badgers.

Killed with kindness by milk and bread..

Drowned in steep-sided ponds.

Emaciated.

Dehydrated.

Readers of this blog will know I've got my hopes raised before but to no avail..........

Then this little fellah appeared on the camera in the Woodland Garden last night!

Just about as excited as a man can get!!!!

Welcome home spiky!!

National bird..

Day 307 #365DaysWild

On our national day - our national bird photographed in the garden.

Little stunner.

Satisfying

Day 306 #365DaysWild

Around 2012 I was clearing brambles on the boundary and discovered a little clump of native bluebells.

One small clump of four flower spikes in a six-acre site!

I had seen bluebells growing abundantly in areas within Bestwood Country Park so decided to buy plants ‘in the green’ for planting near our one existing clump.

Twelve years in and you can see the progress.

I added further bulbs for a few years. 

And then began casting seed.

The results are satisfying.

popular ..

Day 305 365Days Wild

Another of the garden ponds.

Another made from a discarded vegetable garden bed.

Popular with avian visitors...

Listen for a soundtrack of chiffchaff, blackcap and willow warbler summer visitors...

How many…?

Day 304 #365DaysWild

Down at George’s Pond …

Another day, another stag-do for mallard drakes.

How many can you count..?

Granddaughter (4) says 2

Grandson (6) says 3

Daughter says 4

Son-in-law says 5.

The judges decision is final!

A beautiful poo..

Day 302 #365DaysWild

Can a poo not be a thing of beauty?

Approx one inch (2.5cm) long..

No idea from which creature’s bottom it emerged..

STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS

Cleverer folks than me voted overwhelmingly for this to be a regurgitated pellet and not a poo at all!

But what creature produced it..?

Bluebells at Skellingthorpe..

Day 302 #365DaysWild

Bluebells at Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire today..

Also through this azure celebration we’re white to soft mauve wood anenome, butter-yellow celandine and understated but pretty-white stitchwort.

A wonderful mixture of our woodland understory flora.

I struggle to imagine anything more natural - and beautiful!

Thanks to our wonderful friends Mike and Gill for sharing this with us on a walk this morning.

encouraging rat-tailed maggots...

Day 301 #365DaysWild

‘Garden of ten ponds’ #2

Continuing my 'series' on our garden ponds...

This is a small pond in the woodland garden made from a recycled mini-vegetable bed reclaimed from a skip.

Enjoyed by birds and small mammals.

Believe it or not, my hope is for rat-tailed maggots in it this summer. Rat-tailed maggots love the gunk in ponds.

On maturity, they will join the rest of the garden hover-fly population..

Bat detector day...

Pipistrelle bat hiding
in the folds of a garden parasol.

Day 300 #365DaysWild

I’ve been looking forward to today for two weeks!! Like a small boy on Christmas morning! Today’s the day when we open up the bar detectors and discover what data is hidden inside!

And I wasn’t disappointed!! Notts Bat Group bat detector SD cards were so loaded with data from the garden that there was only enough room for eight out of the fourteen days active.

So much so that John had to take the cards away for analysis.

Initially we saw lots of common pipistrelle and soprano pipistrelle sonogram activity. As we moved through, evidence of myotis bats. And brown long-eared bats appeared too.

We had no previous evidence of myotis or brown long-eared bats here in the garden.

I have to tell you that I became a small boy again on hearing we have brown long-eared bats!! From my earliest memories I have been beyond fascinated by wildlife. Brown long-eared bats are almost mythical to me having never encountered them. And now they’re here!!!!! O

Brown long-eared bats echo locate very quietly and so are unlikely to register on hand-held detectors. They are quiet because they hunt larger moths which have evolved to listen out for bat echo-location. In response to their response, the brown long-eared bats turn off their echo-location and hunt simply by hearing the wing beats of the moths they hunt - or the breathing of their moth prey.

Imagine a hearing so acute that you can hear a moth breathing….

We await full results for the garden and for New Farm too.

And then to build some nice big Kent bat boxes from Douglas Fir planks..

STOP PRESS …. STOP PRESS …. STOP PRESS

Latest news..

Garden bats from Notts Bat Group monitoring ..

Common and Soprano pips, 

Daubentons, 

Natterer's, 

Leisters?

Noctule, 

Brown Long Eared 

Whiskered/Brandts?

………. so far.

Booooom!

Let’s make compost !!

Day 299 #365DaysWild

Grass mowing season is here.

Two jobs -mowing and then using  grass cuttings.

Let’s make compost !!

Ingredients 

About a builders’ bag of grass cuttings.

A collection of cardboard and paper, weeds and kitchen waste (non-food) gathered over several weeks in one of the compost bays.

Well-rotted straw.

Shredded leaves and chip from an arborist.

Method

All to be layered up mixing greens and browns.

The temperature of the compost will rise to around 70C and then slowly drop.

This should kill soil pathogens, perennial roots and weed seeds.

Leave for six weeks.

Turn into next compartment and leave until temperature has dropped and branding worms have occupied compost.

Et voila! Perfect for applying to the soil surface as a mulch chock full of beneficial invertebrates, bacteria and mycelia.

And bonus….

Composting lowers greenhouse gases by improving carbon sequestration in the soil and by preventing methane emissions through aerobic decomposition, as methane-producing microbes are not active in the presence of oxygen.

Day #1 22C

Day #3  Almost at 55C

Day #6

Moth light..

Day 298 #365DaysWild

Our first night for months with suitable weather for months!

Lunar marbled brown

Larval food Pedunculate oak

Coxcomb prominent

Larval food Broadleaf trees

A month early ..?

Brindled beauty 

Larval food Silver birch, Common lime, Pedunculate oak

Hebrew character 

Larval food Stinging nettle, Silver birch, Common lime, Pedunculate oak

Muslin moth

Larval food Broad-leaved dock, Red dead nettle

Grey birch

Larval food Silver birch

‘..a confined distribution in Nottinghamshire..’ Eakring Birds

‘Evereste’

Day 297 #365DayWild

Crab apple ‘Evereste’ in glorious bloom now. 

A small crab apple whose size is easily managed by pruning in August.

First admired at RHS Harlow Carr Gardens near Harrogate, Yorks. A stellar performer. 

Last year, due to frost, completely failed to crop - in common with our apples, other crabs and fig. 

But in 2022, the abundant fruits attracted many noisy and hungry fieldfares. 

Flower buds now about to break. 

Soon it will be full of nectaring pollinators. A boon for wildlife.

At last, a butterfly day

Day 296 #365DaysWild

My first whitethroat’s scratchy bursts of song on the lane this morning. Welcome back!!

In the garden chiffchaff and blackcap continue to be joined by singing willow warbler. It would be quite exceptional for willow warblers to breed in the garden so I won’t build my hopes up.

And, at last, a butterfly day!

Comma, peacock, small white and orange tip on the wing.

The very warm temperatures and dry weather gave perfect conditions for nectaring and basking.

Two peacocks in the meadow - and feisty too. One saw-off a big queen bumble bee as we watched.

A small white enjoyed mums Mothers Day grape hyacinths in a pot on the terrace.

Abundant seven-spot ladybirds.

Early ..

Day 295 #365DaysWild

Early Grey moth. Not attracted to our moth light but

drawn to our faulty garage wall light where it waited this morning.

Early by name and nature. One of our earliest moths of the season.

Grey suggests dull or bland- but neither with delicate patterning, especially on a ‘crisp’, newly-emerged individual.

Its larval food plant is honeysuckle of which we have plenty. There were no honeysuckle plants in the garden when we arrived.

We’d gathered juicy red seeds from the native honeysuckle that was fruiting by the footpath near Butlers Hill tram stop - then grew the seedlings onto strong young plants before planting them out.

Some of our plants have now scrambled their way four metres up birch trees. Others have bulked themselves into our hedges. Great as a nectar source and their succulent berries are enjoyed by invertebrates, birds and mammals in the autumn and winter.

Subsequently we’ve added cultivars and different species to the mix for variety and colour.

Dead mans fingers..

emerging ..

Day 294 #365DaysWild

Rain greeted me this morning just as it had closed yesterday.

We are in the wettest period on record.

With temperatures higher than ever recorded.

Atmospheric pollution is now 421.9 parts per million (ppm).

The safe level is deemed 350ppm.

The pre-industrial average was 280ppm.

Discussion of climate change and its' impacts seems perfunctory at best. There are still deniers.

It is difficult not to feel bleak for now and for the generations that follow.

The government is broken, with apparently every service on its knees.

Here, Dead mans fingers fungus is emerging from some of the wood rotting in the Woodland Garden.

Fruiting fungus are fascinating and hugely diverse. This one is unique in my limited experience.

Desperate grasping fingers bringing to mind that awful scene with Glenda Jackson above the grate in the film The Music Lovers..

Our exploitation of the earth seems unstoppable. Our grasping hands wringing the life force out of nature.

A metaphor for our age?

Today feels bleak.