WINTER IS ON ITS WAY

The cold of autumn has arrived, and it signalled the garden birds to descend on the garden; feasting on the peanuts and fat balls.

We’ve seen house sparrows, blue tits, great tits, the odd dunnock and a robin (for the first time in weeks).

There has been a number of jays around recently, and it’s great that they are now increasing their presence around the garden, while the local magpies pay almost daily visits.

No blackbirds have been seen for a while, so I wonder if the incident involving the tawny owl and blackbird at night a couple of months ago has impacted on this. If none are seen in the next month or so, then I might suspect it has.

A frost has lightly carpeted the lawn for the last two days, while the nearby trees and bushes are turning lovely autumnal shades of yellow, brown and orange – all apart from the evergreens!

This week feels the start of the change from summer/autumn to autumn/winter, and the early dark nights that we’ll have for the next five months.

Of course, the clocks going back doesn’t have any impact on the wildlife, but it does impact when we can help them with handouts – for me it’s weekends only.

In news from the lane, badgers have once again been seen, with two spotted on separate nights, a week apart but in the same area, exploring the hedges.

It happened around 8/9pm and is great news because we’ve not seen any badgers down the lane for years.

They were seen regularly, along with the odd fox and loads of rabbits, but it’s rare to see any of them now, which is not good for the rabbits because they were seen at least once a week; now they’re seen every six months.

GARDEN UPDATE

It's been a while since I posted about my blue tits, mainly because after they had fledged I felt somewhat low that their time with me in the garden was limited.

I've also been on holiday; which helped me get over the fledging.

But recently I've been pleased to notice the family of blue tits has returned to feed in the garden from the peanut feeders.

They've been joined by other families including one or two of great tits, robins, dunnocks and blackbirds.

The garden has bloomed recently with three of my sunflowers (grown from seed) now standing at over 7ft. The aphids on some of the roses and other flowers have no been eaten by the birds and insects, including in the last few days, a number of ladybirds.
I've recently been building a small patio area and during the groundwork one of the local robin families introduced me to the youngsters.

They've been around ever since, feasting on the regular amount of worms appearing on the lawn because of the wet weather.

I also spotted a young rabbit in the garden, it seemed a bit lost as no parents were around and I'm a little concerned it might not survive with buzzards and foxes about.

The pond is coming along nicely and is now full of wildlife. The latest animal I've spotted is a water boatman.

I'll be writing regular posts now so stay tuned. In my next post I'll be talking about the tomato and dwarf runner bean plants I've grown from seed and also and update on the patio.