Category: Birds
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Forget it, corvids . . .
We’ve finally finished sorting out Mr Duck’s patch with biosecurity netting. It turned out that the rails I had laying around were exactly the right size to be supports for the jackdaw-proof netting, and so the task was relatively easy to facilitate. The challenge has been that the jackdaws, especially if they go in two-by-twos,…
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But the clematis has gone crazy!
Perhaps it thrives on neglect, this climbing flower at our back door here in Sparty Lea. Or perhaps this season is just its time, but for whatever reason, the flowers are magnificent. I have a little job today, to fix an errant trellis back to the wall where it’s gone awry. But mostly I expect…
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Six grasses and two cuckoos
We began with the hairgrass, and eyes opened to new possibilities, proceeded to identify five more species of grass along the marshland twirl. Thanks iPlant/PictureThis. Common velvet, meadow foxtail, false oat grass, reed canary grass and rough bluegrass. And many of our stops interspersed with competing cuckoos calling for a mate. The marshland feels like…
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After the move . . .
I can’t say ‘job done’ yet because it’s not; there’s the small matter of the biosecurity netting, which has the additional advantage of protecting the chicken feed from the jackdaws and pheasants. But that’s a task for this morning, with any luck. Meanwhile, with the chickens ensconced (apparently happily, but really, who knows for chickens?)…
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Chicken moving joys
So yesterday I finally cleared all of February’s hawthorn hedge trimmings from the potato patch, and pulled out this spring’s encroaching nettles. I thought I’d leave the newly sprouting potatoes, emerging from the wanton tubers I’d missed during the past year’s harvest, for the chickens to scratch around. But then I wondered, hmmm, potatoes are…
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Cuckoo calling and schadenfreude
We clocked several new plants on our pleasant amble through the marshland yesterday. All identified with the iPlant app, beginning with ‘fox and cubs’ and moving on to the pink flowered ‘Endres cranesbill,’ the ‘bush vetch’ and the ‘blister sedge,’ and finishing off with the ‘long-headed poppy.’ The plants were a delight enough for us,…
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The humbling grace of time
We made an unhurried trip to Kirkcudbright yesterday afternoon to visit the monthly Producers’ Market there, and then after acquiring our consumables (heath honey; cheese melt; basil plants; sea weed and juniper smellies; beer), we ventured into the Kirkcudbright Galleries across the road to see the Galloway Hoard exhibition. But it was only much later…
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Return of the European goldfinch
We’ve missed them, these brightly coloured little birds, though chaffinches, sparrows, dunnocks and the blackbirds have been here throughout the winter. I kept them nourished from the feeders that are designed to keep jackdaws and rats out, though the unwanted creatures are getting better at filleting out morsels even so. But late yesterday morning two…
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Sharing broodiness
I feel sorry for the hens when I rustle underneath them to feel for their next eggs. Not quite so sorry when they each peck my hand! But they’re not fierce — they just don’t want to be disturbed in their hormonal delirium. The Barnies are the best layers we’ve had; their eggs are large…
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Blowing the cobwebs out . . .
Our coastal adventure was an easy reconnoitre, for sure. Just along the road beyond Gatehouse of Fleet, at the protected bay, deep in the recesses of the Solway Firth, we stopped at the tiny public car park and walked through the gorse bushes to the beach. It was so bracing to enjoy the fresh air…
Roads to Joy 