Chiffchaff

The first half of this year was amongst the worst on record for invertebrates.

Poor too for the food chains that are built around an invertebrate diet.

Juvenile chiffchaff

Even poorer for cup-nesting birds, particularly ground nesters as the rains came down. Without the protection of a tree hole or nest box, they were at risk of nests being waterlogged and failing.

It is heartening then to hear the contact calls of juvenile chiffchaffs (Phylloscopus collybita). Ubiquitous. They seem to have had a good year.

Flighty. Difficult subjects for the point-and-click amateur photographer as this photo demonstrates…

But successful in 2024.

Superb…

Superb dayglower hover fly (Xanthogramma pedissequum) on wild carrot (Dorcas carrota) flower. ‘Superb dayglower’ - that’s a proper name!

This is considered an uncommon insect in our area, but spreading north.

Superb dayglower on wild carrot

Its life is a complicated one.

Black garden ant (Lasius niger) and yellow meadow ant (Lasius flavus) attend and ‘farm’ underground the root aphids Forda formicaria and Trama species that they collect.

Superb dayglower hover fly larvae have been found underground in nests of black and yellow ants where one assumes they would be challenged by the protective ants.. But they feed on the ants, pupate and emerge..

Are they carried as larvae into the ant nests in the way of chalkhill blue butterflies and fed..?

No-one knows.

Intriguing but beautiful insect reminding us of the complexity of nature.

Water mint..

Water mint (mentha aquatica) is now playing a blinder around the pond.

Like thyme and marjoram, it is a herb whose flowers are attractive to pollinators. 

A metre tall in places, its flowers are enjoyed by high-summer insects like speckled wood butterflies. The larval food plant of two moth species, including knot grass.

Sensational cyclamen

The seasonal clock is turning, now, with cyclamen hederifolium flowers.

Battalions of white to cerise flags on the woodland floor.

Food for pollinators, their sticky seeds are distributed by ants.

Apparently, also called ‘sowbread’. Presumably the huge swollen  

underground tubers are relished by rootling pigs.

Realising a vision for building biomass and recovering nature …

I’ve got this vision that calls to mind the memory of the massive Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.

The huge plume of water vapour that formed billowing clouds above the cooling towers was visible for miles.

The coal-fired power station is now closed.

It blighted the landscape with huge coal piles and emissions of carbon and smoke.

But that vision of vapour clouds lives with me.

We’re living through a biodiversity crisis that sees many formerly-common species in serious decline.

The reasons are complex but their consequences are a lack of food for wildlife.

What we must do, from soil up to the sky is address this lack of food by boosting biodiversity. This biodiversity gain leads to an increase in nature’s treasure - biomass. 

In biology, biomass is the total mass of living organisms in a specific area or ecosystem at a specific time.

The consequence of a lack of soil disturbance, an accumulation of dead wood, of increased wet areas and the variety of native plants and mycology is .. invertebrates.

These invertebrates contribution to a growth of biomass which provides food which increases the vigour of the links in the food chain.

Lesser willow sawfly
(Nematus pavidus) larvae

I see in my minds eye a huge plume of biomass billowing up into the sky on which invertebrates and mammals and birds can feast and flourish.

This cloud forming blankets of invertebrates with others from other localities and on their migratory journeys…

Imagine it..

That’s the vision.

Wildflower seed sowing…

A good drop of rain forecast. Warm weather.

Optimal for casting wildflower seeds.

Grass scythed ready for removal

Ground prepared by removing large perennial weeds.

Rough grass scythed then taken away to remove fertility and allow access by

Bare soil exposed ready for seed

seeds to the soil surface.

Grass mown to reduce further.

All scarified with spring rake to remove remaining thatch and to ‘rough up’ the soil surface in readiness for seeding.

Seed mixed with dry sand

Mixed our own collected wildflower meadow seed with sharp sand to ensure distribution of seed -and sprinkled on approx 70m2

• Yellow rattle (70g)
• Bluebell
• Cowslip
• Wild carrot (old seed)
• Field scabious
• Birds-foot trefoil (tiny amount)
• Mixed small packet ‘wildflower seed’
• Snakeshead fritillary (Jan)

This morning there was good rain. More forecast this afternoon.

I’m optimistic!

The trefoil blues..

Common blue butterflies ain’t so common this year.

They’ve only just started making an appearance here.

Tiny flashes of blue travelling around the meadow. Nectaring on clover, knapweed and birds-foot trefoil.

Common blues are quite particular about the food they want their babies to eat: they favour birds-foot trefoil which is low growing with yellow and red pea-like flowers. ‘Eggs and bacon’ is what we called it as a kid.

It’s time for trefoil to grow its seed heads in their characteristic ‘birds foot’ arrangement.

When ripe, the pods pop and the seeds spring out.

I planted about two hundred seedlings this year. I’m

Hoping they last through the dry summer and go in to flower in the spring and summer of next year.

But, I can’t help myself and so, while our older trefoils are seeding generously, I gathered some of the ‘feet’ and have put them to dry. I’ll add them to the seed mix I’m preparing that is intended to rejuvenate a tired part of our tiny meadow.

Who knows - next year could be a sea of (common) blue..

The moth clock..

Those of us who put lights out in the evening to attract and monitor moth populations measure our year with the arrival and departure of new moth sp. 

They are always seasonal and sometimes their names give this away - July highflier or December moth are examples.

We move around the year following a clock of moths.

Last night, the first of the deliciously-named setaceous Hebrew characters of the year.

Last night 91 macro moths of 30 species.

New for the garden were lychnis and tawny-barred angle.

The ruby tiger (pictured here with dark arches and dun bar above) appears twice in the mothing clock - where there

are two generations, its flight season is May to July and August to April.

The beautiful canary-shouldered thorn (below) appears in one generation between July and October.

Circling crazily ..

Holy moley.

Warm dark night. Windows & doors open.

Suddenly a large bat circling crazily at speed in the lounge. Long pointed wings.

Guessing a noctule. Our largest UK bat. And loudest - but the frequency of their calls is beyond human hearing.

Opened patio doors wide. And gone.

Amazing wildlife encounter.

I’m delighted to have got a grant for twenty top-of-the-range ‘woodcrete’ Schweigler bat nursery boxes. These are the ones that mum’s rear their pups in. Currently on order from Germany. Can’t wait to put them up.

Notts Bat Group with us on Friday afternoon for another fortnight with the static bat detectors.

Spud me like..

Lifting potatoes is one of the principal pleasures of vegetable gardening.

With both hands, pull the mature stems with a twist … and like buried treasure, golden or red tubers spill onto the soil surface. 

Together, you and your tatties have had a journey.

You’ve queued at the Nottingham Organic Gardener's potato day and chosen your varieties…

You’ve mulched your garden vegetable beds with lovingly-made organic compost…

You’ve planted the potatoes with a trowel just below the soil surface - then, as the ground warms, watched the leaves emerge through the composted ground..

When the potato leaves (‘the haulm’) have lengthened, more compost is heaped (‘mulched’) around the stems to keep light away from the developing tubers.

The mulch is part of gardening magic as it..

• conserves water in the soil, 
• encourages worm activity which in turn adds fertility to the soil
• stimulates other beneficial soil invertebrates
• and promotes plant health by fostering soil bacteria and fungi. These connect to the potato roots providing a much-wider range of nutrients to the growing plant.

We don’t water. Even though we store around 7,000 litres of rainwater in tanks and water butts, we leave nature to take its course with our potatoes.

The spring and early summer was wet this year and so we had good growing conditions.

Here’s the results:

Charlotte (6 tubers planted) 8kg

Marfona  (6tubers planted) 13kg

Kestrel  (6 saved tubers planted) 5.6kg

Picasso  (9 tubers planted) 7.85kg

Alouette  (9 tubers planted) 8.35kg

Acoustic (6 tubers planted) 7.6kg

Total 50.4kg

Sarpo Una  (6 saved tubers planted) not yet lifted

We’ll bag or box the potatoes and they will store until spring.

Here’s the thing.

Gardening is great as you’re ’in nature’ with all the benefits that come from this. You’re getting your hands dirty which is great for the all-important gut micro-biome. You’re exercising!

Growing organically in undisturbed soil:

• reduces our exposure to harmful chemicals and plastic pollutants.
• confers health benefits as studies now indicate that food produced this way is more nutritious and contains more flavonoids, polyphenols and antioxidants.

It is also less-impacting as, for instance, every 1 tonne of commercially-grown potatoes will have required a staggering 35 tonnes of water. 

A footnote on reducing our ingestion of plastics to which growing our own organic, no-dig food can make a contribution to our long-term health..

Twenty-four brain samples collected in early 2024 measured on average about 0.5% plastic by weight.

A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain, leading researchers to call for more urgent actions to rein in plastic pollution.

Studies have detected tiny shards and specks of plastics in human lungs, placentas, reproductive organs, livers, kidneys, knee and elbow joints, blood vessels and bone marrow.

Hornet

A year without wasps.

Just imagine that..

Such important garden predators, feasting on invertebrates.

We’ve seen ONE so far this year.

That’s my idea of a disaster. Who knows what cascading impacts this loss of a keystone species may have?

Strangely, this has been a good year for the big, gentle giant cousin

of the wasp - the hornet.

One came calling today so I helped her out. I took a few phone snaps before she went on her way..

Teasel

Teasel seedlings arrived among the perennials and

grasses.

Beautiful, unique flowers.

Towering garden architecture.

Beloved of male goldfinches whose longer bills can reach within each capsule and tweak out a seed.

And what an impact!

Enough here for a charm of goldies.

‘Come and get it!’

House martins

Black & white chatterboxes.

Natures natural brick makers.

Mysterious migrants. It’s still not clear where they travel to in Africa each autumn and from where they return in spring.

Social and yet capable of grim infanticide. We watched a bird eject young from the nest of another house martin.

One of the birds that fascinated me most in childhood,

Their numbers now in steep decline. Their migratory journey is ever-more hazardous. Their insect food no longer abundant.

I paused to enjoy this colony on the outskirts of Paris last week.

I enjoyed them more than the Olympics I’d visited to see. Joyous.

Olympic inspiration…!

Staying at Center Parcs, village Nature, Paris as a base from which we’d visit the Olympics.

In spirit and ethos, the Paris Center Parcs is quite unlike the private equity-owned UK business of the same name. 

And here we found wildflower inspiration. ‘The management’ loved the wildflower areas on display throughout the site. So much so, that there was an immediate agreement to give over a large part of our extensive lawn to wildflower meadow immediately. Mowing and then composting grass is time consuming during the peak growing season. Removing the hay cut at the end of the season is a big job, but will hopefully be less than the frequent mowing and composting.
That is a result - and a bonus for wildlife.

Relaxing in the shade of our chalet I was straight onto

the plan..

Grass is vigorous and so the reduction of this vigour is necessary with parasitic plants like yellow rattle and red bartsia.

Here’s the plan … 

Identify areas for recreation lawn and for meadow

Scarify potential meadow areas with hired lawn scarifier.

Use home-collected seed of:

• Yellow Rattle
• Cowslip
• Knapweed
• Wild carrot
• Field scabious
• Lesser knapweed 
• Oxeye daisy
• Birds foot trefoil 

1. Mix wildflower seeds and sand.
2. Distribute across scarified area.
3. Water - unless sowing done with lots of rain imminent.
4. Continue to mow through growing season 
5. Add spring flowering bulbs.

Control perennials e.g. dock during the following growing season.

Add plugs grown from seed.

Strim all grass in September and remove arisings.

Et voila!!

Face-off!

A trail camera under the big garden copper beech.

Muntjac male and female filmed. Here, a female after sunrise.

Also a fox.

Then, on a later snatch of film, a female muntjac squared up to the fox. Head lowered she attempted a butt. But. He was too quick on his feet and the deer was vanquished.

Muntjac are very protective of their young. A heavily pregnant female has been around the garden over the past few weeks.

Perhaps she has a fawn tucked away somewhere nearby..?