Category Archives: wildlife

Foxes in autumn.

fox, wildlife

There are lovely autumn colours out now but I haven’t really been in the garden much over October.  Harry and I have both had a bit of ill health (no not covid) so I really couldn’t be bothered doing much.  I did pot up a few pots with narcissi, tulips, and bluebells but not much else.  The bay that was on the patio  was brought into the conservatory for the winter, I did my best at keeping the rain off the irises but the leaves look awful just now.  That huge aster will have to be dug up as it is now huge and I just can’t get past it (although it has loads of flowers on it at the moment).  Once Harry is feeling a bit better I will ask him to plant the new cornus in that clay area just in front of the patio.  The plants are rather small so will look tiny there so I may put other pots around them to cover the bare soil or maybe bark chips.  That is the area that the pigeons have made a path to get to the seeds that fall out of the bird feeder so I will need to protect the new plants while they are still young.

Harry did manage to take a few photos through the back window of our little visitors.  They have found a mouse and are hunting in between the pots for it until they get a scent of something else I think.  I frequently find pots knocked over on the patio.  The squirrels have been digging in any bare soil in the pots burying nuts and looking for other nuts so I used to always blame them for knocking them over.

fox on the patio
fox on the patio
fox on the patio

As usual, the louts setting off fireworks have been out and about already!!  We had to call the fire brigade and police out the other evening when these youths rather stupidly decided to build a bonfire just beyond our back garden in the golf course, and then threw fireworks into it!  The fireworks near us have been so loud that our dog is terrified to go outside now.  They are being set off at all times of day and night so you can never tell when it will be a good time to take him out.  Oh how I wish there was a total ban on fireworks.  Trouble is that somehow folk would end up making their own home-made fireworks which would be far more dangerous in the long run.  Ok rant over.

Parakeet visitor.

birds, parakeet, wildlife

So Christmas is over, I do hope you all had a happy festive time.  A few good days with unusually mild weather has certainly brought the squirrels out to play.  They are digging in ever plant pot, and pulling out the cyclamen and other small bulbs, and generally being a bit of a pest.  Harry put chicken wire over some pots to protect them from little paws, but it can’t really be done over some other pots.  It doesn’t look very attractive but it does work.
We did get a rather noisy, colourful visitor over the last few days – a green parakeet!  I don’t know if he/she is an escapee from somewhere near, or if it is one of those that have now found a home in Edinburgh.  Apparently they originated from the foothills of the Himalayas so they have acclimatised well to living in the UK. So far, I have seen him eating the last few berries of the Rowan tree, and either the buds or flowers (or both) of the Viburnum.  He has been getting mobbed by the crows, jackdaws and magpies but he doesn’t seem overly bothered by them.  I did read somewhere that in areas where there are flocks of these noisy parakeets, the chattering and vocabulary amongst the other bird species increases.  We shall see (or hear).  As much as it is nice to see him, I don’t fancy have a flock of them around, making a racket and eating everything in sight.

wildlife, birds, parakeet,
Green parakeet eating Rowan berries
wildlife, birds, parakeet,
Green parakeet eating Viburnum buds or flowers (or both)

It’s raining again…

slugs, wildlife

so I have been indoors pottering about in the conservatory and tending to my house plants rather than braving the cold and very soggy garden.  I managed to over-water one of my peace lilies so I separated the plants, dried them off, and have replanted so hopefully I have saved at least one of them. I have cut back the straggly looking mint, and have taken the yellowing leaves from the parsley plants.   The greenfly are still around so I check my plants almost daily to make sure I keep on top of any potential infestation.  Now I don’t normally move my cactus plants (for fear of dropping them on my lap!) but I wanted to make sure I hadn’t over-watered them too. I am glad I did as nestled at the base of one, was a clump of slug eggs. I have been trying to take better, or at least  more interesting photographs lately, and am using an app (AYWMC) to help me with this.  The exercise this week is to use an editing program and play about with the different editing tools so I used the slug eggs for my exercise. It was fun but I may have overdone the editing.  They were in a string but by the time I had faffed around with placing them at different angles and with different lighting and backing, some of the strings broke.  I found a separate egg that had an embryo showing through the transparent casing.

wildlife, slugs,
a string of slug eggs
wildlife, slugs,
slug egg with embryo

A few days without rain… yeah!

butterfly, wildlife

We had a lovely day day of sunshine yesterday and today is warm and sunny too.  Sadly that won’t last but at least it has been nice weather to do some gardening in.  I have been ripping out a few old rather scraggy looking ferns that were just filling some space until I got some new plants.  So some lovely new ferns have now been planted out, some of them have coppery tones, some are small spreading ones, one is silvery coloured and one is for a hole in the wall.  Can’t wait to see how they come on next year.  I really wanted to tackle the viburnum bodnantense dawn as some of the older stem/trunks are very gnarled and really aught to come out but I will have to be patient and do that late winter/early summer after it has had it’s main flowering season.
I finally managed to get a quick snap on my phone camera of the Speckled wood butterfly.  Wow are they flighty!  I have spotted quite a few speckled woods this year  and as far as I know they have green caterpillars.  I also spotted a  Grey dagger moth caterpillar (just molting it’s skin I think).  It brings back childhood memories of when I used to sit beneath our very small tree in our back garden, with my collection of these these bright caterpillar on my face! I know it was a strange thing to do, but at least I put them all back where I found them.

wildlife,
Pararge aegeria (speckled wood butterfly)
wildlife,
Acronicta psi (Grey dagger moth) caterpillar

July, in between ninja showers…

flowers, plants, wildlife

it is muggy, sunny, and hot.  Lots of my plants have some kind of rust or mould on them..  The meadow sweet, verbena bonariensis and a few others have powdery mildew.  Some of the roses have rust and black-spot.  Some huecheras have rust.  I have sprayed the roses again, and have just given them their final feed so I hope they will pick up a bit.  I have taken off most of the rusty leaves form plants, but the powdery mildew can be quite stubborn  I am having the constant battle with the humongous slugs and have resorted to using some ‘Sluggo’ near my new delphiniums as I am sick of my new plants disappearing overnight.
Normally at this time of year I see loads of bees covering the purple lavender, veronica and agastache out in the front garden but this year there are only a few about.  The agastache to the left of the mahonia is devoid of all leaves courtesy of slugs and snails, while the ones at the right side are fine. The purple loose-strife, persicaria, hedge woundwort, verbascums, geraniums, delphiniums, cat-mint and a foxgloves are still attracting bees and other pollinators.
I finally moved the old bird-bath plinth from the patio as it was falling apart and found it had been a good home for the green cellar slugs (which are good guys) so I let them find a new home behind the patio plant pots.  I found a cricket on the garage wall (horrid photo taken with my phone) which was nice.  We used to hear crickets when we first moved here, but haven’t seen or heard any for years now so maybe they have come back this year? All over the garden are lots of tree seeds: mainly sycamore keys and tiny silver birch seeds.  They really make the place look untidy but I have finished dead-heading and weeding for today and I am off out to enjoy the sunshine before the next lot of torrential rain due tonight (along with thunder and hail so they say).

plants, flowers,
Lavender
plants, flowers,
Veronica spicata ‘Royal candles’
plants, flowers,
Persicaria affinis superbum
plants, berries,
Sorbus  hupehensis Pink pagoda berries
plants, flowers,
Delphinium cameliard
plants, flowers,
Verbascum chaxii album
Old bird-bath plinth
wildlife, slugs,
Green cellar slugs (Limacus maulatus)
wildlife, snail,
Grove snail or brown lipped snail (Cepaea nemoralis)
wildlife,
Cricket?
plants, seeds,
Sycamore keys (samara)

New plants…

flowers, plants, stumpery, wildlife

for the widened border.  I have been shopping at MacPlants again to fill in some gaps in the border. For a nice soft purple and yellow combination there is Nepets junior Walker and Coreopsis verticillata ‘Moonbeam’.  Along side some Cosmos Xanthos (which I had in pots on the patio).  A couple of Leptinella squalida ‘Platt’s Black’ for a couple of corner areas.  I had planted some Ammi visnagi but the massive slugs got them (one seedling survives).  These massive slugs are such a pain and even all the wool pellets I put down are no deterrent what so ever.  These slugs have destroyed half a dozen honesty, all my blue poppies, primula vialii, the ammi, knapweed and loads more besides.  I do a slug patrol every morning and pick loads.  They curl up into a ball to prevent being eaten, and I have found some almost the same size as a golf ball!
The milk churn was moved to a corner in the bed to make a focal point and I didn’t have a pot the correct size but ended up putting a bronze grass on a plastic saucer inside the churn, which is held up by a wooded support underneath.  It looks great just now.
We moved the bench that was sitting under the tree canopy (overhanging from the golf course), which was collecting loads of bird droppings so was rather dangerous for anyone sitting there.  It is still in the stumpery area but under clear skies so much nicer for resting on.
There is still more planting to be done, and moving plants about – which probably shouldn’t really be done just now but some are now in the wrong place.  They used to edge the border but now that the  borders are wider they need to be moved to the new edge.

plants, flowers,
Coreopsis verticillata ‘Moonbeam’,  Nepeta Junior Walker
plants, flowers,
Cosmos bipinnatus Xanthos
slugs, wildlife,
huge slug curled into a ball
slugs, wildlife,
huge slugs
slugs, wildlife,
slug on the wool pellets
plants,
Carex commons bronze in milk churn
plants,
Carex commons bronze (diff view)
stumpery,
bench in the stumpery

Sunshine and slabs… Yay!

butterfly, wildlife

There is a bit of warm sunshine about with a few showers.  The slabbing is now under way so I cannot get access to the garden for the time being.  All very frustrating as I was ill last week and had neither the time nor the energy to get on top of the weeding and dead-heading before the landscapers started.  I am itching to get back out there as some of the plants in need of a bit of TLC. I haven’t been able to do my slug patrols either, but, maybe all the upheaval has meant they are less active.  I can but hope.  I will have to just potter about on the patio for the time being, which means a lot of scraping between the slabs to get the weeds out, and scrubbing the wall near the bird feeder (mostly pigeon poo).  There are plenty of butterflies about now and I did get a nice photo of a Red admiral but just missed my chance to get a snap of a Speckled wood.  Too slow getting my camera out.

wildlife, butterfly,
Vanessa atalanta (Red admiral)

Finally a little bit of sunshine…

bee, flowers, plants, wildlife
in amongst the rain showers. The lawn is like a huge sponge, full of water, and every time my wheels go over it, it gets churned up so is like a quagmire now.  The sooner I get more paving the better. When the sun does come out, it brings the bees out with it.  They are everywhere.  Here is a list of plants in flower now that they visit: deutzia, heuchera, syringia, foxgloves, aquilegia, centaura, rhododendron, geraniums, daisies, thyme, hebe, saxifrages, cirsium, erigeron, geum, clematis and philadelphus.  The garden is literally humming with them.  I have been playing with my macro lens again trying to learn how to use my mirrorless camera.
plants,
Cactus buds
plants,
Aquilegia seed head
plants,
Honesty seed head
plants,
Sepervivum arachnoideum
plants, flowers, bee, wildlife,
Bee on deutzia
plats, flowers, bee, wildlife,
2 bees on Centaura
plants, flowers, bee, wildlife,
2 bees on Cirsium

And, back to being cold again…

birds, fungi, garden, wildlife

oh this fickle weather.  You just never know when you can put the thermals away.
I spotted the common morels again this year but a metre or so over from where they last appeared.  It is always lovely to see fungi in the garden.  I often go around the garden looking for slugs and it is a great opportunity to find unexpected things popping up in the garden.  I noticed also that the ragged robin hasn’t appeared yet so I don’t know if it has died, along with the blue poppies and the bronze fennel.
While I was on the patio I spotted a pigeon, just sitting having a wee soak in the pond, he then started splashing about having a real bath.  I took a pic from upstairs of some of the back garden.  I am finding it more difficult as the years go by to push over the grass, especially when it has been raining, so we will be getting more slabbing put down in June sometime.  I don’t want to have a lot of slabbing but it will make gardening easier and a lot less messy.  At the moment, every time I come in from the  garden, I have to get a stiff scrubbing brush on my wheelchair tyres, and also an old towel, to get most of the dirt from my tyre treads before going into the house proper.   The new slabs won’t prevent me getting pigeon poo in my tyre treads though, and it can be very tricky trying to dodge them.  The grass is also very uneven and some of the slabs we put down years ago have actually sunk as they were only put down onto sand.

plants, fungi,
Morchella esculenta (common morel)
plants, fungi,
Morchella esculenta (common morel)
pigeon, birds,
Pigeon in the pond
garden,
May 2019

THAT BLOODY HERON AGAIN!

birds, heron, wildlife

I have been guarding the pond as much as I can from that bloody heron that keeps pinching the frogs – no wonder we only have a small clump of spawn so far.  I know it is a wildlife garden so I can’t be too choosy about what wildlife visits, but I would like to see more frogs and toads, and it would be great to see some newts.  Harry is going to make some kind of chicken wire thingy to see if we can prevent more frogs being nicked from the pond.  The heron may still be picking them out from the borders around the garden too.  I am not sure if it has a sore leg.  It looked a little like it was limping, and when it flew away, it only stretched it’s left leg behind it properly.  Maybe it knew it was just going to land on the nearest chimney so didn’t bother stretching them both.

heron, birds, wildlife,
Heron watching me from the garage roof.
heron, birds, wildlife,
Heron taking a stroll around the borders.
heron, birds, wildlife,
Heron, crow and hen pheasant.