Two go to Dorset

It’s a while since Outside the Back Door took a holiday and featured somewhere other than southwest London so I thought I’d share with you our experiences outside a back door down in Dorset last month.

We chose the cottage for our Dorset holiday based as much on the view as the location or facilities.  Situated on the Isle of Purbeck, just a mile or two south of Corfe Castle, this cottage offered splendid views across soft green, rolling English countryside.  It really was picture postcard stuff and I’m pleased to say the reality lived up to the photos on the website. 

Our initial reaction was that the garden seemed rather quiet.  We had just left behind a bustling scene of chaotic nesting and feeding activity.  The robins in our hawthorn were busy feeding and were clearly very diligent parents.  Bluetits seemed to be diving in and out of our giant clematis every few minutes.  Here in Dorset, the sky seemed quite empty and the birdsong worryingly absent.  Then on our first evening John spotted movement in the field opposite.  The sun (yes, we did see it!) was just setting making it difficult to identify what we were seeing and then it dawned on us – it was a roe deer grazing.  Well that’s something we don’t normally see at home!  Later on in the week, we actually had two deer strolling around together and deciding which bit of hedge to nibble.  What a treat!

_{Roe deer, Afflington Manor (c) John Malone}

As dusk fell, an outside light on a sensor started flickering on and off.  Given that we were in an old stone property, surrounded by various old barns and farm buildings, could there be bats?  We headed outside with our bat detector and within seconds the echo-location noises of pipistrelles were clicking away.  To be honest, we barely needed a bat detector as we soon had them zooming over our heads.  We do get bats at home but not in the quantity that were wheeling around here.  After all the miserable wet weather we’ve had, we were so lucky that most evenings were dry, if a little chilly, and we could almost set our clocks by the bats emerging – 8.25pm each night.

As the week progressed, we began to realise there were far more birds in the cottage garden that we had first realised.  We adopted the ‘first bird of the day’ approach, seeing what would be first to catch our eye.  It turned out to be quite varied.  The first morning it was a great-spotted woodpecker.  On another day it was the pair of great tits that were clearly nesting just the other side of the fence.  We also seemed to have a robin courting couple as I saw them feeding each other at one point.  Then there were the two goldfinches who seemed to muscle in on the action at the end of the week. A pair of long-tailed tits also seemed to enjoy trying to eat insects from the frame of the conservatory. It was a bit unnerving and we hoped they wouldn’t accidentally injure themselves flying into the glass.

_{Long-tailed tit in search of supper, Afflington Manor (c) John Malone}

One morning whilst debating whether the ‘first bird’ award should go to the goldfinches or the blackbird, we saw more movement in the field opposite.  What had appeared at first glance to be clumps of grass, now seemed to have sprung ears and legs!  By now we were keeping our binoculars to hand and had soon worked out that we had up to three hares prancing around the field.  We went through the inevitable debate – hare or rabbit?  Given that we could see them from quite a distance with the naked eye and that they had brown tipped ears, we concluded hare.  We did hope that we might see them ‘box’ but that proved a step too far.

_{Hare, Afflington Manor (c) John Malone}

Literally just outside the back door, we had a beautiful white cherry tree that was just coming into blossom.  When we did have blue skies, it looked absolutely stunning.  Several large queen bumblebees, and also a few smaller ones, clearly also thought it was stunning and every time we opened the door, we were greeted by the sound of very deep buzzing.  However, it did mean we had to stage a couple of important wildlife rescues.  One of the small and one of the huge bumblebees got a bit carried away and ended up indoors.  A small glass beer tankard and a tourist leaflet proved to be the essential kit for returning them to the wild.  These days bees are so endangered that we didn’t want to be the cause of any accidental deaths!

_{The magic of white blossom against blue skies, Afflington Manor (c) Elizabeth Malone}

This was our second visit to Dorset within the last couple of years.  Whilst this was clearly a very wildlife friendly garden and landscape, we’ve been very struck by how wildlife focused the county seems to be.  I’m sure there are plenty of examples of bad practice in the area as well, but there are some fantastic places to observe wildlife but also verges that positively sell a wildlife friendly message.  And you might be interested to know that the holiday cottage company we booked through, donate to the RSPB for every booking made via the RSPB website.

New neighbours

This year we are expecting new neighbours to move in next to us but it seems we already have some who are setting up home close by. We returned from a few days away to discover a pair of robins working hard to build a nest in the hawthorn tree adjacent to the house. Given the best view of the tree is right by a window with a nice wide ledge, this is providing entertaining ‘cat tv’! As for when the cats go outside, I sense we’re going to have a slightly stressful couple of weeks.

_{Robin nesting in our hawthorn (c) John Malone}

Robins are, of course, notorious for nesting in strange places. So we should probably be grateful that they’ve simply chosen the ivy clustered around this tree rather than something more bizarre, such as a watering can, bicycle or under the car bonnet! According to the Woodland Trust, robins prefer open fronted nest boxes but from what I’ve observed, the nest in our tree is very well hidden. I have, however, seen our robin gathering twigs and bits of grass to create the nest. Apparently this is the female robin as the male doesn’t get involved in nest construction. The nest will be made of twigs and lined with softer materials such as moss and feathers. This nest will also be en suite as it is conveniently situated near the bird bath!  We will be trying our utmost not to disturb the robins as they are likely to abandon the nest should we do so.

_{Selecting nesting material (c) Elizabeth Malone}

Fortunately robins are not an endangered species. In fact populations in the UK have increased by around 45% in the past 50 years. It’s always encouraging to read a wildlife success story rather than one of doom and gloom. As you’ll be aware, the UK has robins all year round but they’re not necessarily the same robins. During the winter, lots of robins migrate to the UK from the colder regions of Northern Europe. Although associated with all those snowy scenes on Christmas cards, robins are quite vulnerable to the cold and the infamous ‘Beast from the East’ some years ago made an impact on their numbers.

I’ve been wondering how long we will need to be on ‘robin watch’ for? According to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), robins start nesting in early March with first broods being laid late March / early April. There’s likely to be 4 – 5 eggs which will be blue in colour. The incubation period is up to 16 days and then a further 16 days before the little ones fledge. We have a particular fondness for baby robins as they are easy to identify. The youngsters don’t sport a red breast but instead have speckled feathers. Like so many birds, robins only have an average life span of 2 years. I was recently preparing some information about skylarks for Bushy Park, and they are just the same. Compared to robins, skylarks are ‘red-listed’ and endangered, and again the average lifespan is just 2 years. I think, when we tend to see robins frequently in the garden, we refer to ‘our’ robins as if they are the same ones year on year whereas that is actually very unlikely.

I had a discussion with a friend a few years ago about whether they had heard a nightingale in a very built up area. I’ve since learnt that this was impossible as it wasn’t a time of year when nightingales would have been present in the UK, let alone in the middle of a city! It was most likely a blackbird but it could also have been a robin as robins are also one of the few UK birds that will sing at night. We will listen carefully, just in case our resident robins decide to serenade us in the early hours!

_{Robin this spring (c) John Malone}

Woody Woodpecker and friends

Looking back at previous Outside the Back Doors, I can see that woodpeckers got a bit of a mention last spring but this month I thought I’d give them star billing.

When we first saw woodpeckers in our garden, we had to do two things. Firstly, stay very still and not move a muscle as the slightest twitch would see them vanish in a flash. Secondly, we had to pick up our bird book to double check what sort of bird we’d seen, such was our limited bird knowledge back then! With their smart black and white feathers and their flashes of red, we soon discovered that they were great spotted woodpeckers. However, in those early days, we would also very occasionally see a green woodpecker too, more of which later.

_{Great spotted woodpecker (c) John Malone}

Currently the great spotted woodpeckers are quite a key feature of our garden bird life as we have at least three regularly visiting the garden. With spring upon us, this is going to be interesting. Two are male birds and the third is a female. How do we know? Unlike some species, great spotted woodpeckers are easy to distinguish. If they are just black and white, then it’s a female but if they have bright scarlet feathers at the nape of the neck, then it’s a male. If it also has a scarlet cap, then it’s a juvenile. We’ve also noticed that the female is bigger than the males but that’s the sort of detail I think you only start to become aware of when you see them most days. Despite them being a regular visitor to our garden, it’s only really been since last autumn that we can rely on seeing one pretty much every hour of the day!

_{Male great spotted woodpecker (c) John Malone}

So if you can’t see a great spotted woodpecker, how might you know that they’re around? Unlike their green counterparts, the great spotted woodpecker doesn’t have a particularly distinctive call until you tune into it. Their “chook, chook” can potentially be mistaken for a blackbird until you also hear a blackbird warning call and then you realise they are quite different. They also have a very distinctive bouncing flight. If you’re out and about in woodland and you see a medium sized bird (they are bigger than a blackbird but not by much) almost bouncing through the air, then the chances are you’ve seen a great spotted woodpecker.

Of course now that we’re into spring, the other sound they are best known for is their drumming. I have been meaning to look up drumming for months but writing this article has finally made me do it. Apparently all woodpeckers drum but some like to drum more than others. That classic drumming sound that hopefully you might hear in our parks and gardens this spring is the great spotted woodpecker. Both male and females drum and they do it to claim territory. I’ve been hearing them drumming in our garden since early February and in Bushy Park since January. They do use their drumming action to get under the bark of trees to extract insects but that doesn’t make the drumming sound.

Woodpeckers of all sorts love insects but great spotted woodpeckers have been adapting to our love of feeding birds and are now regular visitors to bird feeders. This adaptability means that they are doing well and are not currently on any danger lists. It makes a change to read and write about wildlife that is doing ok. In our garden, they assert their authority over the peanut feeder and at times the seed feeder. Well no one is going to argue with that beak, are they?! Just spare a thought for the blue tits, great tits, sparrows and robins that are made to wait their turn!

_{King of the bird feeder! (c) John Malone}

I mentioned that we have occasionally seen green woodpeckers in our garden too. Unlike the great spotted, the green woodpecker is normally seen on the ground and that’s because the insects it prefers are down there. Green woodpeckers adore ants! And that is why I often see them when I’m volunteering in Bushy Park. It’s the perfect place for them. All those grassy tussocks that are so characteristic of the park are in fact anthills. So the green woodpeckers in the park think they are in seventh heaven! You always know if there is a green woodpecker around as they like to laugh at you. They are sometimes known as the ‘yaffle’, named after the cackling sound they make. They are definitely heard more than seen and I always get the feeling that they are having the last laugh,

Whilst I may have become used to seeing woodpeckers in our garden on a daily basis, it’s not something I am ever going to take for granted. Too much is changing in our environment and, just because a species seems to be safe one minute, doesn’t mean that we can take it for granted. When we first moved here 24 years ago, greenfinches were plentiful but the curse of diseases born by unclean bird feeders means that now they are a very rare sight indeed. I wouldn’t want that to be the fate of our woodpeckers. Long may they continue to thrive in our garden and surrounding woodland and parks.

Berrytastic!

As I’m writing, three fat woodpigeons are tucking into a feast of glossy black ivy berries and can you blame them?  In the depths of winter, resources are scare and wildlife depends as much on our gardens as it does on our parks and hedgerows for food.  Ivy is always a much maligned plant but when I see bees working away on it in autumn and then the birds eating the berries in winter, it makes me appreciate the value it brings to the garden.  Did you know that ivy will only produce flowers and berries when it’s trained to grow up vertically?  So all that rampant ivy that has been plaguing us in the grounds of St Stephen’s, isn’t actually of much use to wildlife other than as a cover for insects. 

_{Ivy berries nestling beneath our hawthorn tree (c) Elizabeth Malone}

The beauty of having lots of berries in the garden in winter is that you never quite know what they might attract.  We have a large cotoneaster at the end of our garden which is normally covered in red berries in winter until a flock of redwings turn up for lunch and strip it bare.  However, that’s clearly not going to happen this year as there are no berries!  The plant is remaining stubbornly green rather than dropping its leaves and there isn’t a berry to be seen and I have no idea why!

_{Cotoneaster covered in berries back in 2021 (c) Elizabeth Malone}

It is only writing this that I have realised we have no less than 4 cotoneaster in the garden!  The one that attracts the redwings is a very large, smooth leaved variety.  We have 2 that are ‘prostrate’, that is cover the ground.  One of these has crept all around our pond and another is by our bins.  The latter is quite hazardous when in flower in the spring as it attracts dozens of bees.  We have to tread quite carefully when putting the rubbish out!  Always appearing to be quite lazy, the woodpigeons also like these as they can just stroll around helping themselves to a berry when they feel like it.  Cotoneaster also used to have the reputation of being a bit boring, the plant that developers turned to as a means of quickly greening up a car park, but they are valuable for wildlife and shouldn’t be dismissed so easily.

Whether we have any holly berries in the garden always seems to be question of luck.  I used to blame the birds for eating them just before Christmas when I wanted to pick sprigs for decoration.  However, this may not have been the case.  We all know not to eat holly berries because they are poisonous to humans but it turns out that they are also quite toxic to birds too.  Apparently birds have a high tolerance of the toxicity but it means that they can only eat a few holly berries at a time. 

_{Frosted holly berries January 2024 (c) Elizabeth Malone}

Another shrub favoured by garden birds and grown mostly for its berries or as a security barrier is pyracantha.  Offering a choice of red, orange or yellow berries, it is also perhaps best known for its thorns!  Not to be approached or pruned without a good set of thick gardening gloves.  Being evergreen, it also provides good shelter for small birds all year round.  Research has shown that birds are attracted to certain colours more than others.  This might explain why the berries on our orange pyracantha are always eaten before the yellow ones.  Of course it could be that the birds are waiting for the yellow ones to ripen more – which they’re not going to do!

One berry very much associated with winter that I’ve yet to mention is mistletoe.  We don’t have any in our garden but recently I was surprised to see a large clump that’s formed in a tree not that far from us.  When I’m volunteering in Bushy Park, I am surrounded by mistletoe.  Along Chestnut Avenue in particular, the trees are absolutely laden with it and some of my fellow Rangers were speculating recently whether we are getting more mistletoe in London now due to cleaner air?

_{Trees laden with mistletoe (c) Elizabeth Malone}

Mistletoe is beloved of certain birds and attracts some interesting visitors.  Walk around Bushy on any autumn or winter day and the chances are you will see a thrush.  Many of these are song thrushes but there are also plenty of the larger mistle thrush.  It probably won’t surprise you to learn that they get their name from their obsession with mistletoe.  It is absolutely their favourite food and they will defend it from other birds.

This winter Bushy Park, along with several other locations in London and the south-east, has welcomed a relatively rare visitor.  Small flocks of waxwings have been spotted devouring any berry covered plant.  Waxwings migrate from Scandinavia to the UK every winter but in some years they arrive in their thousands.  This year is one of those years.  They have clearly worked out that Bushy is good for mistletoe and they are going to make the most of it!  I am grateful to Ranger Christine Bradley for allowing me to share with you one of the 600 photos she took of them in the middle of January!

_{Waxwing in Bushy Park (c) Christine Bradley}

The last days of summer

I have got rather behind with my Outside the Back Door blogs although they have been published in my church magazine on time! So now attempting to fill in the gaps. This one is from October.

We had nearly put the comfy deckchairs away but, as September drew to a close, the sunshine and warmth briefly returned, drawing me back out onto the sunny side of the patio.

The wildlife was also clearly enjoying this last burst of summer. The first thing I spotted was a dragonfly soaring around the garden. In the low sunlight it was tricky to see what sort. I was about to stroll onto the grass to get a better view but then remembered that it had rained the previous evening and there were now muddy worm casts appearing. The season was changing and no longer could I just stroll across the grass in sandals or slippers, I needed to fetch my old gardening shoes.

_{Ruddy darter dragonfly – I hope! (c) Elizabeth Malone}

My lovely white cosmos ‘Purity’ were still in flower and being backlit by the sun whilst attracting bees. This autumn the garden seems to have been full of fluffy orange carder bees. They clearly love dahlia, cosmos and sunflowers.  They are one of my favourite bees to see around the garden but I wondered why they are called ‘carder’?  Apparently the name derives from the textile industry as they comb material together to form a cover for their nest, much in the same way as thread might be ‘carded’ before being woven.

_{Cosmos Purity (c) Elizabeth Malone}

Slightly less beautiful was the annoying chattering sound of a squirrel. Presumably something was antagonising it. I don’t know where it was sitting but its call was both monotonous and relentless. Perhaps it was complaining that I’d yet to plant my spring bulbs for it to then dig up! I am prepared. My chicken-wire pot covers are at the ready. I am not going to be thwarted by my tufty-tailed neighbour!

There are a still quite a few butterflies around the garden. Sitting out on those September afternoons, I spotted both large and small whites and a pair of red admiral. It was interesting how the press reported an enormous increase in red admiral butterflies this summer, but I can’t say I really noticed it in the garden. However, when we were on holiday in Cambridge and then Suffolk, we literally saw dozens. They seemed to be everywhere.  They also seem to have been more present in our garden in the autumn compared to earlier in the year.  On several warm afternoons we also had a pair of speckled wood butterflies who were constantly dancing around each other in mid-air.  Whilst this always looks very charming, the butterflies are actually establishing territory.

_{Late summer red admiral (c) Elizabeth Malone}

As the breeze increased, the magpies began fluttering around.  I don’t know where they spend summer but our regular pair are now back and will hang around locally until next spring.  If we put the hedgehog food out before dusk, they will be swooping down to steal it.  They treat it like a good gingernut biscuit being dunked in tea!  They pick up a piece of kibble and then drop it into the nearby water bowl to soften it before eating it.  Very clever – never underestimate a magpie!

_{Screen capture of our hedgehogs enjoying their supper (c) Elizabeth Malone}

Talking of hedgehogs, during September we had two new kids on the block. They were quite independent when they arrived but so much smaller than the big adults who have been around all summer. We once read that, to survive the winter, a hedgehog needs to be the size of two grapefruit.  When they first arrived, these two were little more than the size of a decent orange!  However, they have now been eagerly eating their kitten kibble each evening and are clearly growing.  There’s not much more we can do than give them a decent meal each evening and try to encourage someone to take up residence in the des-res that is our as yet unused hedgehog house!  Whilst we might have enjoyed a late blast of summer, nature is definitely preparing for winter.

Going all out for bats

Last year, on a bit of a whim, I bought my husband a bat detector.  I can’t remember whether it was for birthday or Christmas but it’s immaterial as both are in December when bats are snoozing the winter away in their ‘bat caves’ or wherever they choose to live.  I think I was partly inspired by our Spring holiday in the Forest of Dean when we’d stayed in an incredibly ancient old house, possibly one of the oldest still inhabited houses in England (the foundation stones in the basement were rumoured to be Roman) and we were lucky enough to observe bats flying in and out of the barn opposite every evening.  These were greater horseshoe bats, a rarity these days and high on the list of protected species.  As a result, part of Dean Hall is declared a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest). 

_{Atmospheric Dean Hall – waiting for bats (c) Elizabeth Malone}

We do see bats in our own garden.  It’s usually the height of summer and we see them swooping across our pond to catch insects.  Their movement is so different to birds that often it just catches our eye.  However, we had been wondering what variety of bats were around and I thought the bat detector would be one way of finding out.

For those of you not familiar with such a device, a bat detector is tuned, a bit like a radio, to pick up different frequencies.  So it is listening for the echo-location calls of the bats.  It clicks away at you once it’s heard a bat and then, depending on the frequency of the reading, you can then cross-check to identify the species of bat.  (For more about bat detectors, take a look at the Bat Conservation Trust). This all sounds very good until you try it out and get used to it  We picked a warm summer’s evening in June to stand in the garden at dusk.  It felt like the ideal night for bats to be flying but we waited, twiddled the dials a bit, but nothing happened.  John gave up and wandered off down the garden, handing the device to me.  I wasn’t sure what to do next but suddenly it started clicking in my hand.  I was so surprised that I nearly dropped it!  Sure enough, as we looked up at the clear evening sky, there they were flying around.  We seemed to be getting a reading around 45-50 khz which implied they were common pipistrelles.  Of course when you’re new to something, you inevitably give yourself doubts and so we decided to look out for local bat walks so that we could head out with an expert and find out if we were doing this bat detection thing correctly.

I registered for a walk with the Friends of Bushy Park but it was full so I was put on the waiting list.  Then another walk was advertised in our local Hatherop Park in Hampton so I signed up for that.  Of course the inevitable happened and places became available on the Bushy walk as well so we went out two nights in a row on a walk with the same expert from the London Bat Trust.

The two walks were quite contrasting.  The first was on Thursday 31^st August which happened to be one of those unseasonably cold evenings.  We met at dusk at the Teddington Gate and walked down Chestnut Avenue to the Heron pond.  We had never been in the park that late before and certainly not after dark so it was an interesting experience all round.  It was really quite dusk before the bats emerged.  There is an old fallen willow tree by the Heron pond and they were particularly active around that.  We certainly had lots of common pipistrelle and also soprano pipistrelle and we got to see a noctule bat skimming low over the water.  Our guide was very informative, explaining that a bat as small as a common pipistrelle needs to eat between 2000 – 3000 insects per night!  It was also surprising to learn that London overall has a very healthy bat population.  Of the 18 species that breed in the UK, 17 are found in London and they are present in all London boroughs.  They are certainly around Hounslow as a number of us witnessed them flying over St Stephen’s Church after a PCC meeting in July.  I’m pretty sure you’d see them over Ss Philip & James in Whitton too, you just need to be there at the right time.

_{Bushy Park as night fell (c) Elizabeth Malone}

Leaving Bushy Park in the dark and trying not to unsettle any deer we passed was certainly quite strange but possibly not as strange as our second walk the following evening.  Hatherop Park is an unusual space in Hampton.  When you walk into the park, it looks very ‘municipal’ with it’s play area and sports grounds.  However, the pathway leads into a conservation area which has recently been allowed to re-wild and there is a green corridor that connects it to Oak Avenue Nature Reserve, and it also backs on to Kempton Nature Reserve.  By contrast this was a warm evening, the start of the September heatwave, and with a stunning sunset.  We picked up the sight and sound of common pipistrelles again but then we embarked on a very dark walk along the ‘green corridor’ which, following all the August rain, was remarkably muddy!  Our group of around 24 people carefully wound its way along the tracks, ducking to avoid hanging bramble, attempting not to be stung by unseen nettles, and not to fall over tree roots or any other hazard!  It felt like some strange outdoor challenge rather than a walk in our local park and I couldn’t help wonder what the local residents thought if they saw a strange line of lights moving along the passageway making peculiar clicking noises!  Did we spot many bats along the way?  Sadly not!  And I think after that experience, I’ll confine our bat detecting to the safer environs of our garden!

_{Dramatic sunset over Hatherop Park as we set out on our walk (c) Elizabeth Malone}

If you are interested in learning more about bats in London, do visit the website of the London Bat Group.

A bug’s life

I’m writing this at the time of year when sitting outside means dodging a wasp or feeling itchy as ants suddenly develop wings and take flight.  However, it’s also the time of year when anyone driving to their holiday destination used to get ready to clean the car windscreen to remove the splatter of dead insects.  But pause … think … when did you last have to do that?

_{Bee enjoying the cosmos – Summer 2023 (c) Elizabeth Malone}

The decline of insect populations in the UK is now well documented and is certainly something to worry about.  Whilst you might get annoyed by the wasp ruining your picnic, the overall lack of insects around us could cause some serious issues, such as the failure of crops due to the lack of pollination.  So what can be done about this?  And can we, as individuals, make any difference to this massive decline?  From what I’ve observed in our own garden this summer, I do feel the answer is ‘yes’.  Nurtured with wildlife in mind, I think our little patches of ground can do their bit to halt the decline in biodiversity. 

_{Mystery bug! (c) Elizabeth Malone}

For some years now, we’ve been ensuring that any plant we choose to add to the garden has single flowers which make it easy for insects to reach the vital food source stashed away at the centre.  We’ve also deliberately chosen plants that are either ‘bee-friendly’ or ‘pollinator friendly’ such as echinacea, helenium, cosmos, echinops, lavender and verbena to name but a few.  Our garden certainly buzzes away with activity on just about any dry day of the year, and I include the middle of winter in that as our winter flowering shrubs step into the breach when the weather starts to chill.  However, this summer I feel that I’ve seen more insects than usual and insects that I’ve never previously seen, which got me thinking.  Why is this?

_{Red soldier beetle seen in my garden for the first time this year (c) Elizabeth Malone}

This summer has been our third year of participating in the ‘No-Mow-May’ campaign and I think it’s been our most successful attempt so far.  The idea behind No-Mow-May is to let your lawn grow long during May to enable insects to nest and breed amongst the longer grass.  The first year we attempted this, the grass just became messy.  We cut bits back here and there and weren’t really sure what we were doing.  In year two we became a bit more organised and, come the end of May, cut a few swathes around and through the long grass, and we experimented with leaving some longer for longer.  This seemed fortuitous when the summer of 2022 turned into a scorcher and one of drought.  However, soon the grass began to turn into a dust bowl and we even feared the threat of wildfires, especially when park areas in Hampton and Twickenham burned.  This year, with the generous supply of rain and the lower temperatures, the grass has thrived.  It seems to have reached its natural height and flowered, leaving us with a cloud of dusky pink.  Cutting a clear path around it performs the magic trick of making it look planned rather than just ignored.  None of that, however, tells you about what I’ve observed.

_{It’s not just the insects that enjoy No Mow May! (c) Elizabeth Malone}

In early July I spotted my first ever skipper butterflies in the garden.  These small orange and brown butterflies did seem exceptionally plentiful this year.  A camera operator at the Hampton Court Flower Show obviously thought so as they kept homing in on them during the BBC coverage.  Clearly it wasn’t difficult to find them if they were even making it into our garden.  Then on another occasion I saw a couple of meadow brown butterflies in the garden.  As their name suggests, they are usually found in long grassland so clearly they now felt at home in the garden.

_{Small skipper butterfly in my garden – Summer 2023 (c) Elizabeth Malone}

It’s not been just butterflies.  One day I found a luminous green beetle perched on one of our echinacea flowers.  I think I’ve identified it as a rose chafer beetle.  My salvia plants seemed to attract a black and orange beetle which, several days later, appeared to have brought along its friends.  One soon became three.  These turned out to be soldier beetles.  I’m sure I’ve never seen them before.  We also had visits from a couple of lesser stag beetles.  I confess that whilst I don’t mind these on the ground, I dislike seeing them fly!  My final mystery bug might be a thick-legged flower beetle but, if it is, then it’s a female because it’s rather brown and dowdy whereas pictures I’ve seen of the male are iridescent.

_{Rose chafer beetle – Summer 2023 (c) Elizabeth Malone}

As mentioned above, we always have a good selection of bees in the garden but this year I feel we’ve seen more hoverflies.  In the spring we get something called a bee-fly which is quite big and furry and hovers in mid-air about eye level.  We also get what I believe are called ginger hoverflies.  These are a little bit like a miniature wasp but much more attractive.  With their bright orange stripes, they also have the advantage of not stinging, but are happy to graze across the flowers.  I think I’ve seen more of these this year and they’ve been joined by smaller all-black hoverflies which are extremely difficult to photograph and identify. 

_{Ginger hoverfly – Summer 2023 (c) Elizabeth Malone}

As we come towards the end of August, we are going to have to make the decision when to cut all the grass back.  Traditionally I believe meadows are cut at this time of year so may be the Bank Holiday weekend? 

_{Mint moth – Summer 2023 (c) Elizabeth Malone}

All of a twitter

No, I’m not referring to the latest social media saga but to the wonderful song we get to hear at this time of year.  I’m sure we all remember those extraordinary days of lockdown in 2020 when the sky was blue and we all had the opportunity to reconnect to birdsong.  I remember leaning out of the bedroom window and waving my phone in the air to capture the extraordinary sounds.  For once, no gentle rumble of the A308 or A316 in the background and no giant metal birds flying over!  Just the prettily feathered sort, chirping away.

_{The blue skies above our lockdown garden in Spring 2020 (c) Elizabeth Malone}

When it comes to identifying birdsong, I will be the first to admit that I am pretty rubbish at it.  However, I recently had a revelation and one of those ‘hurrah for modern technology’ moments.  I was out on Ranger duty in Bushy Park (we’re the volunteers you see dressed in that rather fetching shade of bright orange!) when there was suddenly the most strident bird call.  Myself and my Ranger partner stopped in our tracks.  It wasn’t an unfamiliar sound so I bravely suggested ‘Wren?’  My partner promptly pulled out her mobile phone, clicked on an app and pointed it in the direction of the bird which, very obligingly, repeated the song.  It turned out I was right, it was a wren!

_{Wren captured in Bushy Park (c) John Malone}

Back home I promptly went to the app store and searched for bird song apps – dozens of them!  A brief email conversation later with my fellow Ranger and I found out that it was the Merlin app she was using.  A few minutes spent downloading it and out into the garden I headed to give it a trial run.  I didn’t discover anything extraordinary on that occasion but it did prove that the app worked.

Over the Easter weekend, however, I made two interesting discoveries.  Whilst on duty in the Visitor Centre in Bushy Park, I could hear a very small high pitched squeaking.  This will be an interesting test of the app, I thought and sure enough, it came back telling me it was a goldcrest I could hear.  I was delighted.  The trees opposite the Visitor Centre are very large conifers and trying to spot a goldcrest in one (Britain’s smallest bird) would have been like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  Although I looked carefully, I still couldn’t spot it but it made an interesting talking point with visitors. We have seen the occasional goldcrest outside our backdoor and I think that’s due to the fact that our neighbours have a large conifer tree. Nothing a goldcrest likes more than a conifer!

_{Conifer at the foot of the rainbow! (c) Elizabeth Malone}

Then on Easter Sunday I returned home to the most glorious tweeting sound at the end of our garden.  Out with the app again and this time I discovered I was listening to a blackcap.  I have seen blackcaps in our garden, usually during the depths of winter.  They are easy to spot as, unsurprisingly, they have a black head.  Although just to be confusing, the females have a brown head!  They are known to be beautiful songsters and I have heard and seen them out on walks locally but I was still surprised to discover this one was singing in the depths of our laurel tree on a sunny Easter day.

This month is all about bird song as International Dawn Chorus Day falls on the first Sunday of May each year, which is the 7th this year.  You might want to make a note in your diary to set the alarm early that day and have a listen out the window.  Better still, why not head out to a Dawn Chorus walk?  I confess that I’ve never managed to motivate myself to get up early enough to do one of these but there are several happening nearby. May be one year?!

Frog versus heron!

Imagine what it must be like being a frog.  There you are one minute, minding your own business, drifting between the pond weed and, seeing as it’s spring, wondering whether your mate is going to turn up.  Then, SWOOSH, down comes this prehistoric looking creature with a long, spiky bill and your number is up!  Well that’s exactly what happened to the one frog that seemed to have reached our pond this spring.  He, or she, very quicky became the heron’s lunch – ugh!  Obviously a heron needs lunch just as much as the next person, bird or even frog but it was rather gruesome to witness. As a result, it does seem as if we’re unlikely to be fostering tadpoles in our pond this spring. 

_{Frog in our pond (c) Elizabeth Malone}

It is lovely seeing frogs in the pond but I confess that I do also enjoy seeing the heron.  At almost a metre tall and less than 2 kgs in weight, their rangy physique is more that of a long-distance runner than a sprinter.  And like a long-distance runner, they are in it for the long haul when it comes to stalking their prey.  I’m sure you’ve seen them at the water’s edge, waiting patiently, not moving a muscle for minutes at a time, or creeping their way forward, silently, barely disturbing the water.  When they do take off, it is like watching something from another world, in fact we often joke, “Pterodactyl overhead!”

_{Take off! Heron taking flight from our garden (c) John Malone}

The heron we see in the UK is the grey heron and apparently there are about 63,000 birds.  Occasionally it feels like they’re all along the Thames!  In fact, I feel that I first really became aware of heron when John was lucky enough to have an office overlooking the river in Old Isleworth and he would often comment on how many heron he’d been able to see out the window.  That was over thirty years ago and I’m pretty sure numbers have increased since then.  On a recent walk in Home Park, we saw about six in one morning! 

I’m not sure that frog is their preferred prey.  Certainly the heron I see in Bushy Park are eyeing up the fish but they will also eat small mammals.  Last spring I also witnessed a dramatic moment in Bushy when a heron swooped on a tiny bank vole which then shrieked vociferously, dangling from the heron’s beak until finally the inevitable happened and it was swallowed!

_{Heron in Bushy Park (c) Elizabeth Malone}

So returning briefly to frogs, have you seen any frogspawn yet?  Frogspawn is one of the key indicators of spring and is used by Nature’s Calendar, now produced by the Woodland Trust.  By tracking the emergence of spring across the country, the Nature’s Calendar project has shown that spring is now arriving in the UK 8.4 days earlier than when recording first began all the way back in 1736.  Scientists are now using this data to consider the impact on other wildlife and on plants.  If you’re interested, you can sign up to be one of the Nature’s Calendar recorders.

Meanwhile, I’ve volunteered to be a Royal Parks Spawn Spotter!  If I can’t watch spawn in my own pond, I may as well look for it elsewhere.  I’ve been allocated two watery areas within Bushy Park which I’ll be checking on a regular basis throughout March and April. I am asked to record whether I see any spawn, and equally importantly, if I don’t.  If I do, then I have to estimate the number of clumps – now that is clearly easier said than done! However, I was over the moon to discover spawn on my very first spotting expedition! I am now keeping my fingers crossed that it isn’t disturbed too much and gets the opportunity to mature into tadpoles. Statistically speaking, only a very tiny percentage of those tadpoles will eventually become frogs and even smaller number will make it to maturity.

_{Spotting spawn in Bushy Park (c) John Malone}

It may seem a small thing but all of these projects help to us to understand the impact of climate change and ultimately what that means for our homes, gardens and, given the most recent shortages, our supermarket shelves!

Pigeon post

Certain wildlife can be very divisive.  Foxes, rats, badgers and even beavers spring to mind as species that are not welcome or celebrated in all quarters.  In the bird-world, I’m thinking that the humble pigeon falls into this category.

Wood pigeon in our frosty garden (c) Elizabeth Malone

Take the pigeons in our garden. Exactly one year ago I was bemoaning the fact that we had five socking great wood pigeons stomping about the place. To their credit, they were excellent at eating up all the spilt birdseed under one of our feeders but unfortunately that feeder also hangs above my lavender bushes and, let me tell you, wood pigeons are no respecters of the delicacy of lavender! A wood pigeon is a sizeable creature and lavender can be quite brittle. In addition to stomping around, they were also constantly flirting and sparring with one another, leaping off the ground with thunderous wing clapping and bashing. To be honest, I was quite relieved when they seemed to be taking a break from our garden. That was until the ferals turned up.

One of our smarter feral pigeons (c) Elizabeth Malone

I cannot tell you when this happened but sometime over the summer and into last autumn, for the first time since moving here well over twenty years ago, we found ourselves with feral pigeons in the garden. To begin with it was just two quite smart, neatly striped birds but soon two became at least five. Of course it could be our fault. We moved the fat ball feeder from where it was creating a nasty greasy mess over a rather attractive plant, to a new location suspended over a bit of grass. It didn’t seem to bother the regular garden birds who adjusted to the new location within hours but it would seem that the patch of crumbled fat ball beneath became a magnet for these feral pigeons. You might say we shouldn’t be concerned. Feral pigeons are as much God’s creatures as the next bird but what we have observed is that the ferals have driven away both the wood pigeons and the collar doves who used to visit regularly. Since Christmas, the wood pigeons do seem to be trying to make a comeback. However, earlier today I saw flagrant aggression from the ferals towards the wood pigeons with two ferals chasing off the larger bird. This is quite sad to see. We are now having a bit of a re-think in terms of the bird food we provide. Apparently feral pigeons are less likely to eat food mixes containing wheat so we are reading ingredients lists quite carefully.

Wood pigeon and feral ‘friends’ (c) Elizabeth Malone

Looking at what else deters feral pigeons, of course I’ve come across references to railway stations and other venues using hawks.  So may be we just need to encourage the local birds of prey to come soaring our way a bit more frequently to grab their dinner!  Another option is to position a predator bird statue somewhere in the garden but I can think of several reasons or not doing that.  Firstly, presumably it would scare off other birds too?  And secondly, anyone who has seen the ‘mock owls’ outside the Pheasantry café in Bushy Park will know that this simply does not work! 

Collar doves – shy when it comes to having their photo taken (c) Elizabeth Malone

That said, I fear more birds of prey might scare away the one collar dove that is braving the fray.  Collar doves are the elegant members of the pigeon crowd with their beige colouring, neat black collars and gentle coo’ing.  We used to see them in fives and sixes in the garden but not for some time now.  In January I saw a pair together late one afternoon but now there seems to be just one.  Sadly it was a collar dove that I once witnessed being hunted down by a female sparrow hawk in our garden.  The hawk drove the poor dove into the corner of our patio causing it to crash into the doors.  Fortunately it didn’t stun itself and I think it may have got away on that occasion.  Of course sparrow hawks have to eat too!

Sparrow hawk on our front hedge in 2022 (c) Elizabeth Malone

So at least for the time being, it seems that we are destined to have Percy pigeon dominating the garden and lining up along the roof ready to swoop down the minute we’ve headed back indoors.  As for the cats?  Well they seem to find it the equivalent of cat TV!