WINTER IS ON ITS WAY

After a very mild autumn, the first signs of winter have led to frosts, cold winds and even snow in places.

There’s not been any snow, or very little sign of frost, in the garden, but the small birds have been flocking to the feeders.

The flock of house sparrows seems to be increasing in numbers, while the blue tits and great tits are spending more time in and around the peanut feeder.

I’ve also noticed a robin spending plenty of time on selected perches around the garden, sometimes singing, but mainly watching out for other robins and opportunities for grabbing some food from the feeders.

The temporary greenhouse was blown over in the recent and while moving it to the garage for winter storage, I found a huge number of slugs and snails seemingly trying to hide out the cold.

I safely moved them to the green waste bin so they can spend the winter somewhere else and not spend next spring and summer munching on the garden plants and vegetables.

Each day brings more leaves from the trees and it’s now much easier to spot the birds on the branches, but the down side is there’s not much daylight to be able to do this.

I’m hoping that as we go in to December and the weather gets colder, we start to see the likes of fieldfares, redwings and the now more common jays in the garden

This should increase the chances of the local sparrowhawks entering the airspace above the garden and the battle for survival in the coldest and darkest time of the year.