Sadly, due to Covid19, the annual village Open Gardens event in its normal format has been cancelled but it still goes ahead online.
I spent a few hours preparing photos of my wildlife garden to upload to the Lubenham Open Gardens Facebook page.
Tag Archive | nature
30 Days Wild-Day 5
This gallery contains 7 photos.
30 Days Wild-Day 4
I recently found a set of watercolour pencils which I bought many moons ago but have hardly used. Feeling very lazy today I decided to use them to complete another page of my colouring book, “Ivy and the Inky Butterfly” by Johanna Basford. I found a page of flowers and leaves to tie in with doing something connected with nature with this result;
- 114 Days of Freedom
- Book review
- Craft projects
- Depression
- Disability Confident
- Family
- Food
- Friends
- Garden
- Health & Fitness
- Inspiring
- Iran
- Lifestyle
- M.E & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- Photo challenge
- Poems
- quilting
- Quotes and sayings
- Scrapbook
- Self-Help
- Sewing projects
- Share Your World
- Travel
- True happenings
- Uncategorized
- Wildlife
anxiety Christmas chronic fatigue Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Craft Crafts creativity depression Depression Alliance Disorders Esfahan fatigue fighting depression with positivity flowers friends Friendship Garden Health hope inspiration inspiring Iran Isfahan love Major depressive disorder Mental disorder Mental Health Mood nature papercraft Peace poem poppies postaday2011 quotes recovery relax sewing spring Stress travel weekly photo challenge Wildlife wildlife garden wildlife gardening
30 Days Wild-Day 3
Hurrah! I never thought I would cheer when it rains but I did today. I love the warm sunshine and being able to sit outside in the wildlife garden and just chill out to the sound of birdsong, scuffling of hedgehogs and the gentle “plop” of the frogs jumping back into the pond but my garden needs water! It started off as a light drizzle this morning but has gradually increased to a steady rain this afternoon. I just hope it doesn’t last long!
At first I was able to sit under my apple tree as now it is in full leaf I am sheltered from most of the wet stuff but I soon found that my glasses were steaming up and splattered with rain so I put Plan B into action.
I have many and varied bird feeding stations in the garden. Different feeders, at different heights and filled with a variety of food. I soon realised that I would be spending most of my day indoors, so I thought I’d shake it up a bit.
I filled a teapot with a pre-prepared mix of “songbird” food but with extra black sunflower seeds and mealworms (dried). I then moved it from its normal position in the open garden, to well inside the canopy of the apple tree. This is very near to my Girl Cave and where I usually sit to watch and learn. Whoever finds it will either be lucky or pretty astute and brave. I then set my trail camera up to watch whilst I was happy and warm indoors….
So look who got there first? No surprise it was a flock of starlings both adults and their young queueing up to take their turn and dip their head into the teapot.
Its easy to dislike these birds. They are noisy (gobby), demanding, hang around in gangs and are happy to chase off other birds if they want to eat. But they are also clever and if you look close, their feathers are almost luminescent in shades of blue and green. I can’t say that they are my favourites; they are too skwarky and opinionated for me but I do respect their intelligence and ability to feed their many juveniles.
-
- Clever Starlings
30 Days Wild-Day 2
Sadly, walking the dog through the countryside yesterday brought on my hay fever and therefore today I decided to make the most of my Wildlife Garden and stay home. I created my Wildlife Garden in 2016 on a piece of land hidden behind our garage. Hubby spent a lot of time and hard work growing beans in very dry and barren soil, even though we had worked diligently to improve the soil with manure, conditioner etc. I managed to persuade him to give up gracefully so I could take it over for my Wildlife Project.
Luckily it has been very successful and 4 years later I enjoy sightings of many varieties of birds, insects, hedgehogs, frogs and the odd dragonfly. We even have a couple of squirrels which come to scavenge the peanuts.
My favourite bird which visits my garden is the goldfinch but only because of the vivid colours of its feathers. It’s almost tropical. Unlike the cheeky and almost tame blackbirds and robins, the goldfinches are a bit skittish so if I am to get a photo I need to set my camera up well before they arrive with the shutter button within reach of my hand without alerting them to movement. If they spot anything out of kilter they fly off.
I have managed to take some photos over the last couple of days so here’s my Random Act of Wildness contribution for Day 2.
30 Days Wild-Day 1
It has been too warm to roam far today so, as it was my turn to walk the pooch, I decided to go really wild and turn it into a nature walk. I took my camera and enjoyed the experience so much more being more mindful of our surroundings. I noticed the different smells and colours along the hedgerows. The trees in the churchyard with different shades of green really showed up against the clear blue sky and it made me think how many shades of green I have in my paint box- not that many.
I am lucky to live in a village which prides itself on its dedication to keep the village looking beautiful and well tended all year round and in addition to the usual summer and winter bedding shows, the volunteers for Lubenham in Bloom have created a wildlife garden, incorporating a small insect hotel, and a separate bug hotel in the church yard. A bug hotel is fun to make and can be any shape or size and many of the items will be hanging around home and garden already. I will do a separate post on these later in June.
-
- Bug hotel
-
- Wildlife garden
-
- Small bug hotel
We have a stream/river running through the “back” of the village which often floods in the winter but after a very dry and warm May is running very low. This means you can see the mud banks better and all the holes excavated by, I assume, water voles. I stand to be corrected as I am no expert on water wild-life. A bit further on we walk along an old railway line which starts off in a lovey shaded area where the path has been taken over on either side by trees. Thick ivy covers the ground so its lovely and cool even in the warmest weather. Heaven for dog walkers. A pile of railway sleepers provide a wonderful home for all sorts of insects and wildlife but as I dont like creepy-crawlies I’m not looking too close.
-
- The river now a stream
-
- Old railway line
-
- Railway sleepers
The shaded path opens out into an open walkway, which should now be part of AdamSmile, taking us into a field where the dog (Jasper) can run off the lead. The field is a mass of buttercups and along the typical British hedgerow we find Cow Parsley, Vetch, Nettles, and a variety of grasses growing waist high. Above these are the blackberry and elderflower bushes, both of which can be used to make wine, as well as blackberry and apple puddings in the autumn! Elderflower cordial is also popular and is really easy to make.
Buttercup meadow
Elderfowers
Baby Blackberries
I have a hate-hate relationship with grasses as they are the main contributor to my hay-fever in summer when the pollen count is very high so I try and give them a wide berth if possible.
Grasses
Thistles
Briar rose
We found a patch of thistles which Eyore would be quite happy to tuck into and a lovely briar rose-typical of an old-fashioned English hedgerow.
Altogether Jasper and I had a lovely walk and it was a real pleasure taking note of all the different wild flowers and trees instead of walking by.
We must do this more often.
30 Days Wild starts tomorrow
Get ready to do something wild every day during June with the 30 Days Wild challenge for 2020 run by the Wildlife Trusts.
- Make time for nature
- Explore wild places near where you live
- Share your love of nature and wildlife
Connecting with nature and spending time in wild spaces and places is scientifically proven to alleviate stress, balance our emotions and even boost our immune system. In the current climate of enforced lockdown, anything which helps to improve our mental health is welcome and what better way than to find a way to incorporate nature into your daily life.
Big changes and large projects are not necessary and a little effort goes a long way to encourage wildlife into your space. This can be a mini-pond made from a washing-up bowl, giving up part of your garden to a wood pile or uncut grass or feeding the birds all year round and not just in winter.
On The Up
I don’t know where the time goes and I cant believe that its 8 days since I wrote my Blog. In that time however I have managed to establish some sort of equilibrium and am much calmer.
Earlier in the week Jasper alerted me to a juvenile hedgehog eating its dinner in the night garden. It was clearly obvious that the hedgehog was not particularly big, so I asked hubby to bring me the scales from the kitchen.
I weighed “Cheeky Charlie” (named because he/she didn’t curl up for long) and found that the 375gms was not sufficient for him/her to survive winter hibernation. I understand that hedgehogs should be at least 500-600gms to survive over winter so I prepared the cat carrier, complete with towels, hot water bottle, newspaper, food and water for the hedgehog’s overnight stay with us, before taking him/her to the local Wildlife Hospital the next day.
The hospital welcomed the new addition and promised that we can have him/her back in the Spring.
The hospital will keep the juvenile hedgehogs, not ready for hibernation, in warm conditions so they don’t try to hibernate. This would probably kill them as they don’t have enough body fat to live on whilst their body slows down. Hopefully, after a Spring and Summer back in our garden Cheeky Charlie will be ready to hibernate this time next year.
In the meantime, soft as I am, I have built the hogs a shelter so they don’t have to eat their dinner in the rain……..
Am I daft?
Hoglets
Following the sightings of a number of different size adult hedgehogs over the last few weeks, the last two evenings have seen the appearance of a couple of baby hedgehogs, hoglets.
I think that they are two different hoglets; it’s difficult to tell but looking at the size of the feet, and shape of the nose, I believe they are two babies, not one. Based on their size, I also believe that they are 2016 babies, probably born in early May. They are too small to be 2015 babies as they wouldn’t have survived hibernation at this size. They need to be at least 450-500g when they hibernate and so I am pretty confident that they are this year’s model.
Let’s hope that mum has another litter soon so we have lots more hoglets running around the garden.
How cute is this?
Feed the birds
My birds have gone to bed for the night, but in the morning they are in for a treat. I have made some peanut butter cones and hung them on the fig tree, ready for breakfast.
Very simple to make and apparently birds love them.
All you need;
Fir cones, Peanut Butter, bird seed and string to hang them up.
Method:
Smother pine cones in peanut butter and roll in the bird seed.
Hang on trees and wait for the feasting to begin.
Poppyposts 