Sitting on the patio

Sitting on the patio, listening to birdsong (lark, thrush, blackbird, sparrow, raven, buzzard) and insect sounds (bees, hoverflies, grasshoppers, dragon flies, butterflies)

Finally cool enough to water patio plants and sit outside now. Been hiding in the cool of the house all afternoon. 

What a hot day.

It's astonishing the amount of insect life in the last 10 mins visiting this one 12" diameter patio pot of wild flowers.

Muntjac doe, again, again

The muntjac doe is a creature of habit, it seems! Back out the front of the house tonight , same time, same behaviour!

Tonight, I was able to come out of the house and watch her from the front patio so a lot closer than before ( ~ 20 feet away) , previously have photographed her through the kitchen window and she scarped if we went outside or even looked at her from the doorway. Last night she let me watch her from the open doorway. 

She just looked up at me a few times tonight, and then carried on grazing. 

💕 Am a lot in love.

Found a bat!

Today, we found a bat sleeping in our barn. Was a bit worried bat was still asleep at dusk, but it was quite cold today so maybe too cold for bat to bother waking up?

(Hour later, bat had flown.)

The problem with squirrels

 @JacobiJayne  #feedthebirds


As well the Woodpecker "problem"  I talked about in my last post, we also have a real problem with squirrels. Our wood is home to a number of grey squirrels and, as long as that is where they stay, we adopt a "live and let live" attitude to them. Indeed we are amused and entertained by their antics. One year, though,  the numbers multiplied and suddenly they were eating all the apples, all the growing crops and even chewed into the polytunnel. That year we had to resort to live trapping and shooting some to restore the balance, but usually we all get along together. The squirrels do however love to eat the bird peanuts and seed and will chew up any vulnerable feeder to get to the food. I use squirrel proof metal Droll Yankee nut feeders which work well but have not, so far, come across any squirrel proof seed feeders. I have been resigned to just regularly buying complete new feeders to replace the damaged ones.

So when I was contacted by conservation products company Jacobi Jayne & Co to see if I would like to try out some of their products I immediately said yes.  I had a lovely chat on the 'phone with Graham from Jacobi Jayne about squirrels, gardening, birds and wildlife in general and I outlined my problem with squirrel damaged feeders. As a result I was offered two different seed feeders to try;  one of which says it is 100%  squirrel proof and the other a general purpose easy to clean feeder but in which all the parts can be replaced.

When the parcel arrived I realised I had also been sent a couple of big feeder hanging hooks and a 12.5 kg bag of Special Mix bird food, so thanks Graham!

The One feeder is a standard looking bird feeder but is very easy to take apart for cleaning ( it is a very good design) and I can see it would be easy to just replace any chewed or damaged parts so I was impressed even before I hung it out.

The Squirrel Buster was easy to assemble and I could immediately see how hard it would be for a squirrel to get at the seed!

 Fill up the inner hopper

 Add the outer mesh cover - here it is open for birds to eat the seed

but if a squirrel tries to get to the food  (Compostman's hand pretending to be the squirrel, here)  the extra weight of the squirrel makes the cover slide down and blocks the feed. What a brilliant idea.

These two new feeders went out on to the bird table along with the Droll Yankee nut feeder - the birds immediately began to use the new feeders, and as usual the hens hung around waiting for the dropped seed (sigh)

 

You can buy Jacobi Jayne conservation products in shops or online at their website Living with birds
There is a wealth of useful information on the site and they sell lots of other products for wildlife. The Squirrel Buster retails at £24.95, The One feeder will be launched in mid June and the medium sized one (above, lhs of the pole) I am using would sell for £11.49.

I haven't seen a squirrel try the Squirrel Buster yet but I bet it will find it hard to get at the feed. I will keep you posted and try to get a photo if I can!


Disclaimer. I was sent the feeders, a couple of hanging hooks and a bag of seed to review. All opinions are my own.

Feeding the birds

 #feedthebirds  #rspb

We are very lucky here at Compost Mansions as we are host to lots and lots of wildlife, including lots of birds :)

At the moment I am having to avoid work around the front of the house due to Mrs Blackbird nesting

Can you see her? Click on the photo to make it larger and you can see her yellow beak in the middle of the image.

When we do the Big Garden Birdwatch we always have lots of different birds on our list, and of course we follow the advice from the RSPB on feeding "our" birds all year round. This can be a problem, though, when some of the residents decide to sabotage our efforts by drilling holes in the bird table pole.

This was done by one of our many Greater Spotted Woodpeckers. They come and take peanuts and usually fly to the nearest tree ( we offer them lots here!) to wedge the nut in a hole or crack to eat. But we now have at least one very lazy 'pecker, who hops off the nut feeder (to the right of the pole) and just sticks the nut in this hole to eat! I fear we may need a new pole for the bird table fairly soon.

So I decided to dig out a metal bird feeder pole I was given as a gift ages ago and had never got around to using (sorry, Sue!) to see if that would deter the vandal. It has a mesh food tray, hangers for three feeders and a water tray and I don't think even our Woodpecker will be able to drill into it. I try to put out more food at this time of year so an extra feeder pole seemed a good idea.









The kit was was easy to put together and, so far, the birds love the extra feeding station. The Woodpecker is just taking nuts from this new one and flying to a near by tree to eat them. Hopefully this may fix the pecking problem!

Lovely gardening weather

Hello lovely people, how are you enjoying this weather? I have been working outside early in the day planting seeds and doing stuff in the poly tunnel and generally gardening like a mad thing - then at lunchtime it all gets far too hot so I retreat inside to do housework, computer work, read, craft or some such.

Then when the sun has gone down a bit and the heat has lessened I am outside again, planting and weeding and generally doing my Compostwoman stuff. 

This is the road side face of our house, with a very wild flower border and a climbing Hydrangea up the wall.

I was weeding and planting this border last week when I realised I was hearing a LOT of Blackbird scolding - no cats around so I knew it was me who was the problem.
















I had a closer look at the Hydrangea and realised I could see a yellow beak and a pair of eyes...click on the photo to see what I mean!

















And later when I looked, I saw this - a Blackbird nest with four eggs :) Lovely :)

I just need to make sure that  these three do not find it. It is high enough that they can't get to it, so I am hopeful that the fledgings will be ok.

Huge numbers of Bumblebees.

Tonight, as I was heading back to the house after hen shutting up and polytunnel watering duties, I stopped to admire the sheer number of bees on the perennial Sunflowers and Globe thistle.

We have a huge bed of them by the garage and the Thistle in particular is simply smothered in Bumblebees.

I must take some photos in daylight!

Oh, Deer!

Last night Compostman came running in holding Compostgirl's camera and very excitedly downloaded the photo he had taken on it...

Can you see the deer? on the path in the wood, in the middle of the shot?

We saw the deer again, right up by the garden fence , just as it was getting dark. We all went outside in the rain to see - Compostgirl in her pj's, all of us holding our breath, the cats very worried and thrashing their tails at this "intruder". The deer stood and looked at us and then quite calmly and slowly wandered off into the wood.


Today, we have been outside moving electric fence netting to keep the hens off the newly emerging potato haulms in the raised beds outside of the garden fenced area - it was nearly time to stop for lunch, when to my amazement the deer appeared again!

When I first saw him, he was only about 15 m away from me, right by the hen house and garden gate.

He slowly moved into the wood, apparently unconcerned by our presence,

We think it is a young male Fallow Deer.

Wonderful ( as long as he leaves my veg patch alone!)

Hedgehog update.

Hedgehogs active before I went to bed very late last night and again today earlier on in the evening They all went out foraging in a little line behind mum ( looked very sweet) and they ate the food I put out as well.

Mum will probably move them to another place fairly soon as they no longer need the nest, now they are out, and it is a good security measure. But they will still be within the garden and so I shall continue to put out food and water.

Update later on just before midnight - she has moved them from the nest, but I have seen them in the garden elsewhere.

Baby hedgehogs

During the last 4 weeks we have been lucky enough to have a hedgehog living under a large fern in one of the flower borders next to the house.

It is unusual for a hoggie to have a permanent nest and come back to it every night at this time of year, so I suspected the hoggie was a she and was getting ready to give birth (or already had given birth) to, some hoglets.

Obviously we couldn't poke around in the nest to see, because that would have frightened her off and possibly caused her to eat the hoglets or abandon them.

This afternoon she came out for a forage, with at least three ( maybe more but only saw three) babies with her.

They are about tennis ball sized, perfect mini hedgehogs and are about 4 weeks old I would say. They followed mum around, making slight squeaks if they lost her, poking around in the dead stuff, for about 20 minutes. Then they went back in to the nest and she followed them and positioned herself across the entrance to the nest. This has been her position every day for the last few weeks, just peeking out at us.

I have provided cat food and fresh water close by.

This is one of the babies on top of the nest. The others have gone back inside and you can just see one in the entrance.

This is the Mum peeping out from the nest, having got the babies inside. She is down the bottom of the picture.

Spike, our new house guest!

We have a new guest at Compost Mansions. A young Hedgehog! He was found wandering around the School Field and so we were asked to take him home, as we have reared hedgehog babies before. He was in a bad way from cold and lack of food and he is too young and small to make it through hibernation this winter and would die if he tried. He only weighs 150 g and ideally needs to be around 500g to make it through hibernation AND WAKE UP AGAIN ( very important, that last bit!)

So this poor, small, lost little baby needed help. Urgently.

He perked up a bit that evening when we put him in a spare rabbit cage we had in the shed, with a nice warm dark bed and cat meat to eat, and we thought we had sorted him out, but the next day he had started to wobble when he walked - never a good sign in an animal!

So, we brough the cage in the house, I put him in a box by the woodburner to warm up and then dropper fed him rehydration fluid.

And gave him a massage ( with all those spines, tricky, that! )

until he roused enough to eat a bit of mashed cat meat from my hand.

BTW, do NOT give bread and milk to hedgehogs as it is VERY bad for them!

He is now stuffing his face with cat food today and making a hell of a mess in the cage.....

We have called him "Spike".

Amazing Bumblebee nest

We have an amazing bumble bee nest in the woodshed and while I was poorly I spent a lot of time sitting in the sunshine by the woodshed entrance, just watching these industrious insects zooming back and forth past me...a wonderful sight!

They love the flower bed next to the wood store as well.





Bumblebees, like Honey bees are under increasing threat in our modern, polluted world. They struggle to find suitable plants to feed from, they need suitable undisturbed places to nest or for the queen to overwinter and they are not finding what they need in our modern world.

So, a plea for the bee...( with apologies for my naff poetry...!)

Make space for bees,
leave corners natural,

careful when strimming,
make gardens floral,

leave plant stems standing,
don't be too tidy,

watch when you're mowing,
take time to study,

Bees are so beautiful,
gentle and busy

and if we don't help them......
our crops will be gone.



For more information on Bumblebees visit the Bumblebee Conservation Trust

I REALLY should know better.....

I REALLY should know better.....

I posted a comment on a previous post earlier today....

The picture shows a shrew ( a common shrew I think, pigmy shrews are even smaller with even pointier noses!)

but the cats DO bring in bank voles, yellow necked mice, wood mice and ( whisper) the late Monty puss brought in a dormouse once, which I managed to rescue and release. The worst "present" was a live Moorhen, which was brought in through 3 cat flaps, 3 rooms and then killed ( very messily) all over the sitting room carpet...that was done by Kitty Cat many years ago, in his "catching Hares, Rabbits and full grown cock Pheasants on the wing" days...

I wish the young cats would bring back something edible, for a change, I don't really fancy shrew...(!

Guess what Sidney has just brought in?

A full grown, warm, dead rabbit....

I need to be careful what I wish for, I think!

Slaughter of the innocents

What IS it with my animals?

First it was moles, now it is shrews!



See how small it is?



They have very sensitive snouts and whiskers.

This one was unfortunately dead when we got to it, but we HAVE rescued many, alive and wriggling and vocal. Watch out if you ever have to handle one, as shrews bite hard and they, too , have venomous saliva!

and now the hens are getting in on the act! These are of Henny, she caught this live shrew and ran off with it, the other hens following her like a macabre Benny Hill chase scene, before she managed to find the time to swallow it whole. :-(







We find at least 3 dead ones a day, usually inside the dining room. I think the cats have the (misguided) idea that as WE eat in there, THEY should as well?

And we are constantly rescuing other wildlife at the moment...

Sometimes I think I live in a madhouse ;-)

A visitor in my kitchen today

While I was wrapping some presents in the lower kitchen today, I went to throw some crumbs to the hens, and the "back door" robin came and sat on a bucket by the opened back door. He/she often does this, and occasionally gets some crumbs or bits of food....

but today the silly thing decided to come INTO the house to get the crumbs...

and then got panicked and couldn't get out again..
I eventually managed to catch the poor, scared little bird in my hand, it let me gently take hold of it and release it outside again.

but not before it had blessed my kitchen floor.....
Sidney was VERY annoyed that he had missed a "lunch on the wing". I had had to throw him out pronto during the robin catching session, as he came to see what all the fuss was about and wanted to do his own brand of "helping"! so I had to unceremoniously throw him out of the kitchen while we caught the Robin and released it.

Bats and Cats....

I just had to repremand Tom Kitten severely just now, for trying to really hurt me...Kitty and Sid both rushed in through the door as I came back inside the kitchen and Tom came running over to hiss at them and then he had a go at me which is NOT ALLOWED. So I did what his mum would have done and cuffed him ( gently!) and told him off...so he came and snuggled up, purring ( ahhhhh)

The older cats were hanging around the door outside because the outside light was on and lots of Bats were hunting the insects , attracted to the light!

The cats ALL seem outraged by the Bats..........you can almost HEAR them muttering "huh, bloody flying mice, its NOT fair!"

But we like them!

More Kittens

Well we went out to Hereford today and went to look at a Kitten at a farm in Credenhill.

We have decided to get a kitten now, while we are going through cat flap/litter tray/keep off the bench/learn to get on with Kitty..issues at the moment with Sid ANYWAY, so I said to Compostman that we might as well get the kitten we were originally thinking about, before we heard about Sid...and get all this fun over with NOW. So...we went to look at one Kitten and there were two left, a brother and sister, cuddling each other, oh so cute........

Sid meeting the new kittens

Tom on the left, Tabitha on the right






Sleeping off a sachet of cat food each...








Well...what more can I say??

Sid the (bigger) kitten is VERY taken with them already!

She hatched them all!

The Hen Pheasant has gone...and so have all 19 chicks!

Squatters in the bird box.

After the sad news about the baby blackbirds and the robin...some GOOD news! We have Great Tits in the nestbox on the shed next to the polytunnel!

Sad day.....

We had this Blackbird nest in the Climbing Hydrangea on the north face of the house...I snapped this last week , but sadly three of the birds were killed by something...

now we have discovered that the last baby bird has died in the nest...

I guess the 48 hours of non stop rain and wind into that wall may have had something to do with it...

also a baby robin flew into one of the kitchen windows today and broke its neck...

despite all the windows having RSPB bird silhouettes......

Mother Nature can be sad sometimes...........