Category: birds

My Garden Journal – April

Back to my garden journal where we can see what was interesting me in our garden at Avocet during the month of April. My journal for April begins “As March gave way to April the weather responded with the sun making regular appearances and for the first time this year daytime temperatures made double figures. The garden celebrates!”

It celebrated with bright colours of spring flowers such as Celendines, Pulmonarias and early chartreuse flower s and bracts of Euphorbias.

My quote from Jenny Joseph’s book “Led by the Nose – A Garden of Smells” speaks of the delicate scents of the garden and in the countryside that are so important in spring.

“The flowers that had come out in the sheltered places on banks and in woods – violets and primroses kept fresh by the rain at the beginning of the month – had been too shy and careful to part with much of their scent. Now they opened to the sun, and woods and walks began to have a lighter sweeter air. The air began to be a mingling of fragrances.”

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As the water in the wildlife pond warmed up we thought we would have our first dip with our net to see what wildlife was in evidence beneath the surface. In the journal I wrote “What fun as we reverted to childhood!”We were surprised by just how many different creatures had already stirred into life. I chose to paint the nymphs of Dragonflies and Dameslflies and a Backswimmer. The Damselfly Nymph will hatch out into an Azure Damsel and the two Dragonfly Nymphs into a Hawker Dragonfly and a Darter Dragonfly. They were quite a challenge to paint in their subtle earthy hues.

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Continuing on the watery theme on the next page of my garden journal I wrote “Jude gets excited each time she catches a newt when she is on her regular pond maintenance forays. The first this year appeared in early April. Such excitement at Avocet!” We were so pleased to find so many newts out and about and so active this early in the year. As well as enjoying seeing them using our pond we are even more pleased to know that they are helping us with out pest control out in the borders. They spend much of their time out of water and are partial to slugs. Welcome visitors indeed!

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Now these little critters were even more of a challenge to paint than the other pond creatures! Anyway here are the results.

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On my next page I wrote, “During Easter Weekend, usually associated with cold and rain, the sky turned the deepest, clearest blue. Temperatures suddenly doubled and the garden buzzed and hummed with the arrival of bees and hoverflies. The most popular of all plants is the flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum.”

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April is the busiest month of the year in the greenhouse. We raise vegetable plants for our allotment plot and annual plants for our garden, but a lot of space is taken up with Jude growing hardy perennials to sell on our open days.

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Towards the middle of the month the ponds were getting livelier with Water Boatmen, Pond Skaters and Water Beetles in evidence whenever the sun shone on the water. We set up our live moth trap for the first time this year to see what was about when darkness fell on the garden. Moths have such wonderful names, mostly given to them by English country clerics with far too much time on their hands. We found Small Brindled Beauties, Muslin Moths, Common Quakers and Early Greys.

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I next wrote “Goldfinches are searching the uppermost branches of our trees for the best nest site. We have at least one pair nest every year”. I then got out my watercolour paints and pens and attempted a painting of a Goldfinch.

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My final page in my journal entries for April featured two colourful beetles which we found in our garden in that month. “A tiny and very welcome visitor, a 14-Spot Ladybird came to our garden on our first Open Day of the year. A tiny but very unwelcome visitor to our garden also appeared on our first Open Day, a Lily Beetle. We welcome the 14-Spot as he eats aphids but we hate the Lily Beetle as it devours our lily leaves.”

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Tags damselflies, dragonflies, garden journal, garden pond, garden wildlife, goldfinch, ladybirds, lily beetles, pond, spring, spring flowers, spring garden, wildlife ponds

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Walking the Shrewsbury Battlefield – Part One

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date May 9, 2015
3 Comments on Walking the Shrewsbury Battlefield – Part One

Although we have lived in Shropshire for years it is only now that we have finally visited the site of the famous Battle of Shrewsbury and the Church of St Mary Magdalene built there to commemorate those who died in battle.

There were absolutely no clues that a battle ever took place here as we walked the footpath across the site of the battle, but we enjoyed wandering along the hedgerows with the song of Skylarks high above us and the distinctive call of the first returning migrant warbler, the Chiffchaff. We enjoyed seeing and hearing a Yellow Hammer a scarce farmland bird.

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Signs of spring were to be seen every step of the way, freshly bursting buds with the brightest of greens emerging and the earliest of blossoms.

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The willows were giving a light show, as the sun shone through their catkins.

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Some trees were still bare skeletons against the blue skies.

As we approached the scatter of buildings around the church, a shallow stream flowed alongside with banks of water plants coming to life.

In the woodland around the church we discovered the remaining fish ponds used by the college chaplains.

We wandered past the church and made our way to the nearby Battlefield Farm Shop which luckily had a coffee shop! We decided to have a look at the church on the way back when we would be well-refreshed. In converted old farm buildings an exhibition explained all about the Battle of Shrewsbury.

We began our walk back around the battlefield site following a narrow gravel path between a tall hedge and an old chestnut fence. In a field showing signs of ancient ridge and furrows agriculture we spotted a drainage pond rich in vegetation and a old fallen tree with the most amazingly shaped trunk and branches.

In part two of our look at the Shrewsbury Battlefield site we will look at the church and the skeletal tree in more detail.

Tags battlefields, Blackthorn, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, willows

birds colours flowering bulbs garden wildlife gardening gardens hardy perennials light light quality Shropshire spring gardening

My Garden Journal – March

As we entered the month of March we looked forward to increased temperatures both during the daytime and at night .We thought with luck the danger of frosts would be diminishing, although this year we have had few to talk of and none deep enough to cause many problems.

So let’s have a look at my Garden Journal for the month of March.

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“Early in March we treated ourselves to two new Hellebore hybrids to add to our dozens already adding colour to our borders”

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One displays simple single deepest red flowers and the other pale green petals edged with a picotee fringe in deep plum and in the centre a similarly coloured collar of petals. Let’s look at the simpler one first.

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In complete contrast the “colarette” Hellebore shows so much more colour and variation.

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Pleased as we were with our new purchases we were even more pleased to find a chance seedling Hellebore which has sneaked its way into our Rill Garden. The problem is that it has settled in tight into the base of the stone wall of our raised pool. “We were also surprised to discover a beautiful new self-crossed hybrid in the Rill Garden. Each petal is a subtle combination of blush pinks and pale greens, its centre the deepest yellow.” It really needs moving out to replant it where it can be appreciated properly. This photo shows it in its chosen home. We love it for its subtle combination of pink and green with delicate spots, and of course for choosing our garden to grow in. What do you think of it?

My journal moves on to look at the first tulip of the year, this beautiful species one with such unusual colour combinations within its petals. “Our first tulip is out, a beautiful deep red-blue colour. Each bloom is so delicate it seems the gentlest breeze will disperse its petals.”

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I reveled in the challenge of representing its flower, shaped like the flame of a candle, in watercolours with pen and ink detailing. I had great fun mixing so many tints of blues and reds together and even brought in a touches of green.

The bird life at Avocet starred next in my journal. “Wrens and Robins are becoming dominant in the garden. Robins are developing territorial traits resulting in chasing and flouncing. The nimble Wren hunts in every nook, crack and cranny for insects, spiders and their eggs. They still roost together in the pouches we have, scattered throughout our garden. Soon they will be considering them as potential nesting places.” It will be interesting to observe the changes in behaviour and attitudes towards each other when this change of emphasis occurs.

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I quoted a further passage from Jenny Joseph, “March is certainly coming in like a lion – a roaring beast. After the gale had torn wider and wider the covering to the sky to let the blue in, it was a bright sunny enticing outside world.” In my journal I wrote “But for us here in Shropshire we have had no strong winds at all, just sunny days alternating with cloudy damp days and cold nights.” But March was to prove these words to be dreadfully premature, for as the month was preparing the way for April to follow in its footsteps we did indeed get gales lasting several days and taking us into April. This strange atypical weather isn’t helping the garden, and definitely not helping us as we prepare for our first opening for the year on 16th April. I noted this in the journal, “This is confusing the garden. It doesn’t know which way to turn. Plants are behind where they should be. Few Tulips or Daffs have displayed their blooms. Leaves on the Acers are showing little inclination to burst from their buds.”

As my journal closes for March we are preparing for our April opening and we could do with some help from the weather and from Mother Nature herself! We can only wait as spectators and see what April brings with it.

Tags garden journal, hellebore, hellebores, March, robins, spring, spring bulbs, spring flowers, spring garden, wrens

allotments bird watching birds community gardening conservation diy garden buildings garden ponds garden pools garden wildlife gardening irises log piles natural pest control recycling renovation Shrewsbury Shropshire trees water garden water in the garden wildlife

The wildlife pond and hide at BAC – part two

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 24, 2015
6 Comments on The wildlife pond and hide at BAC – part two

As promised we make a return visit to see the work we have been doing on the development of our pond and hide at our allotment site, Bowbrook Allotment Community. In this part we shall look at our hide, some tree surgery and our new duck tube.

So first let us return to our new hide. If you remember those pictures of us rolling the battered and rather shaky old shed you will be surprised by the photos of it finished. So how about a before and after pair of pics? We made the hide for our allotment youngsters, our Roots and Shoots group, to give them the chance to secretly and quietly watch the life of our pond. With this in mind we set to work on our renovation which took an amazingly large number of volunteer hours.

Whenever we go by the pond we can’t help but smile at the transformation! As you can see the old hide was firstly repainted outside by my young apprentice Thomas before we handed it over to two volunteer helpers Sean and his Dad Vince. They are great carpenters so brilliant volunteer helpers to have on board. They put fresh felt on the roof and fabricated a strong framework inside the shed. They made a concrete and slab base and placed the newly strengthen shed on a framework of wooden struts.

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Thomas returned to give the shed another coat of wood preserver and I added a sign I created from wooden letters. It began to look the part from the outside but even more so once the two men added a new sheet of perspex to the window and added two hatches for clear viewing on dry days. These can be seen in the photo below.

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Within a few weeks Sean and Vince with extra help from Sean’s children had put up a noticeboard, made a kneeling bench and shelf for leaning on when the children used the hatches and window. The pictures below show first the bench and secondly the view the children get from the hatch.

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This is the view our Roots and Shoots youngsters will get as they open the hide door. You will see that Jude and I have added identification charts for birds and dragonflies and damselflies and a poster displaying the life on and under the surface of a pond. We also made a little bookcase from a vegetable crate and placed in it some wildlife books for youngsters. We also mounted a whiteboard on which we are inviting the children to note their observations. The final touches are a pair of binoculars a notebook for children to jot down their nature notes.

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Last job of course was a celebratory cup of coffee perching on the children’s bench and admiring everyone’s handiwork and great efforts.

Now let us enjoy a bit of tree surgery carried out so professionally by some more of our volunteers, Pete and Mike. As mentioned in part one we have a few elderly Ash trees around the pond which for safety sake need remedial work. Earlier on we managed to pull down broken branches that had rotted but got tangled in the lower branches as they fell, but this day was a day for the chain saw attachment on our strimmer head to get in the action. One large branch hung right over the pond to the far bank and was slowly splitting so getting lower and lower. The final cut shows the weakness.

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First Mike and Pete looked and stared and studied! They needed a strategy!!

This strategy involved rope thrown up and over a much higher and stronger upper bough, with which they could keep control of the branch once it was sawn through.

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Attachment attached and they were off!

The cut bough hanging obediently could then be pulled in and dealt with on dry land. It will soon be seating for the youngsters, edging for borders and parts of insect homes and log piles and brash heaps to help attract ads shelter wildlife. We discovered an awful lot of rot within the bough so it was great relief to see it down. Trouble is there are a few more going the same way.

Finally we need to look at our duck tube! The photo below shows why we need one! A pair of Mallards patiently waiting!

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Just follow the picture sequence below and watch Mike’s adventure. Before we made the dam and changed the drainage around it to gain depth for wildlfie the pond was rarely more than 6 inches or so deep!

He is a good chap is Mike! What would we do without him? And below the duck tube in pride of place in the pond in a position where the children can watch activity from their new hide. Brilliant!

We still have further work on the pond mostly planting but we have a plan for a floating island to give wildlife somewhere to find safety and shade. Pete and Mike have a plan as you might have guessed! But of course that may be the subject of a future post visiting our super wildlife pond! One piece of info I have not mentioned are the dimensions of the area, useful I think to put things in perspective and to emphasise the size of the project. The pool is 22 yards long by 11 yards at its widest point, and the marsh area at the one end is 9 yards by 7 yards at the widest point. Around the pool and marsh between the pond and the fence, the walk around together with the planted areas vary from 3 yards to 5 yards. Quite a size!

Tags beneficial insects, Bowbrook Allotment Community, communal gardens, community, community gardening, community spirit, duck tube, garden insects, garden wildlife, insect homes, insect shelters, mallards, wetland wildlife, wildlife gardening, wildlife ponds, wildlife shelters

allotments bird watching birds community gardening conservation diy garden buildings garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden wildlife gardening gardens irises log piles natural pest control recycling renovation Shropshire trees

The wildlife pond and hide at BAC – part one

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 22, 2015
5 Comments on The wildlife pond and hide at BAC – part one

When Bowbrook Allotment Community first opened we had a old farm pond on our boundary fence but it was fenced off and we had no access to it. After a few years though as the site was extended on the pond side it was integrated into our gardens and the town council put a low security fence around it with a lockable gate. We then had to wait for it to be released into our care which finally happened early in the winter of 2014. This is the story of what we have done to it so far and about our plans for its future.

Diggers came in and scooped out all sorts of rubbish thrown into the pond by the farmer over the years, rusted coils of barbed wire, rotting fence posts, old metal fences, branches and boughs of trees. The old puddled clay layer was exposed and smoothed off. The aroma was disgusting! Sadly there was little sign of plant or animal life in the pond. At least all this disturbance didn’t upset the wildlife, the birds soon returned to the trees.

As a community garden determined to increase the biodiversity in our 6 acres there was no question that it would become a wildlife pond. To begin with we had to recontour the area between the pond itself and the fence to make passage around it easier and safer. It was hard graft and took a lot of volunteer hours to get it done.This will enable us to keep a path mown all the way around the pond for maintenance and enjoyment. But first we must rotavate the pathway to prepare it for grass seed sowing as soon as the weather allows.

You can see from the group of photos below the area we have to work with and the work we have done so far, the lopping of the trees, the path leveling and the preparation of the bog garden. The pond itself is about 20 x 10 metres and the marshy patch about 8 x 7 metres so pretty impressive! And then there is a margin area varying in width between just over a metre to about 4 metres. W have set ourselves a mammoth task! But we have allowed ourselves a year to get it right. So far things are moving along much more quickly than anticipated as opportunities have come our way.

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The next photo shows the bog area at the end of the pond where the drainage pipes from adjacent farm land brought the water into the pond. This was a steep sided marsh area with a tiny stream meadering through it. We have piped the water below the area now and re-contoured the sides to make it safer. This area will be planted with native and other wildlife attracting plants such as King Cup, Liatris, Yellow Flag and Flowering Rush.

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We have recently started the planting and will soon be adding far more. Some we will get as donations from our members and neighbours but others we will get from local nurseries once they have got their stocks out. So far we have planted different sorts of Irises, Water Mint, Water Forget-me-Not, Bog Beans and oxygenators. The first pair of pics shows Jude collecting plants from our pond at home and the second pair shows Sherlie planting some in the new pond.

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Several mature Ash trees surround the pond so some surgery was required to let more light in and help plants grow healthily. The bough below was slowly collapsing right over the water across to the far bank so caused us great concern. We had to cut it before it fell! We need to look after the health and safety of our members. I shall show this work in part two.

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We have put up nest boxes, created a bird feeding station and are creating lots of mini-beast and amphibian habitats. Several are up in the group of Ashes that border one end of the pond.

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We have created extra wildlife habitats and shelters along the perimeter fence creating them from recycled items and natural materials. Probably one of the most exciting elements of the whole project has been the creation of a bird hide for the children to use. This began as a battered old shed donated to us by a plot holder and transformed into a rather fine hide complete with a noticeboard for recording,some identification charts and a small library of identification books. Two plotholders, Sean and his dad Vince volunteered to carry out the conversion and soon other family members joined in. The finished hide was way beyond our expectations as they managed to fit a kneeling bench down the one side to enable children to look through the hatches they had constructed. For wet days when the hatches need to stay closed they added a perspex window. All this from my very simple plans and drawings!

Here we are moving the old shed from one side of the site to the other in true Roman style, rolling it along on round stakes. It proved a great adventure as it kept trying to change shape and the door constantly flew open.

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And here is the shed now transformed into a hide, just like the ugly duckling turning into a swan. The rest of the story of how the transformation came about will be in part two.

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Wherever the pathway gets close to the bank we have planted a low boundary hedge from willows harvested on site and have woven whips of different coloured willows from the brightest yellow to the darkest black through it. Similarly at the outlet end where water drains to prevent flooding, we have a steep area bank which we have given a similar low willow fence and we are slowly planting up the slopes with small ground covering shrubs that also attract bees, butterflies and hoverflies.

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We stored the willow prunings we had after coppicing and pollarding our “Withy Bed”. The photo shows these awaiting action and illustrate just how many colours of willow we have to play with

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A recent job was to make barley straw pouches to drop in the water to help keep down the growth of algae and blanket weed – a good organic solution. Look closely at the picture below to see if you can spot one.

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We know there are some critters who are looking forward to us finishing or at least being somewhere near a livable place for them. the resident group of Weasels, our Mallard families and the site’s frogs. We must pamper to their needs as they entertain us and do much of our pest controlling.

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The bird in the fourth of the above photos though arrived amid mixed feelings from us all. Our Grey Heron is most definitely a handsome bird but he is a threat to our fish. We have a small population of native Rudd in the pond brought in as eggs on the feet of the ducks. Sadly until we get some plant cover for them to seek refuge beneath they will soon be wiped out by the Heron. The photo was taken on a member’s mobile phone through our green fence.

In part two we will look at details of how the hide ended up, some of our tree surgery work and the adventures we had putting in our duck tube.

Tags beneficial insects, Bowbrook Allotment Community, communal gardens, community gardening, community spirit, garden pond, garden projects, garden wildlife, insect homes, insect hotels, insect shelters, insects, wildlife gardening, wildlife ponds

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Wildlife Homes and Green Men

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 2, 2015
5 Comments on Wildlife Homes and Green Men

When we opened our garden last August under the auspices of the National Garden Scheme and appeared in its famous Yellow Book we included in our details that we welcomed children. We were aware that few gardens make this obvious so we decided to reverse the trend. We made a few quiz sheets available for them to encourage them to look closely. They were very popular and most youngsters had a go. Some were very determined to find everything on the sheets. Great fun!

One quiz sheet featured our little collection of “green men” which we have scattered around the garden, some of which are hard to find.

The other invited our children visitors to seek out the large variteies of wildlife homes, shelters and nesting places.

I thought you might like to see the photos of the green men and our wildlife features. Amongst the green men is a definite intruder who lives in our Japanese Garden on the trunk of the Salix flexuosa.

So now to our huge variety of wildlife features all designed and carefully placed to welcome all sorts of creatures, large and small.

Places for our feathered friends to roost and nest ………………

Places for beetles, invertebrates and amphibians ……………………….

Places for bees, lacewing and ladybirds ……………..

Places for all sorts of beneficial creatures – whoever wishes to drop in ……………………

We will have to think up some more quizes for our young visitors later this year.

Tags beneficial insects, garden insects, garden wildlife, insect homes, insect shelters, National Garden Scheme, nest boxes, NGS, predatory insects, roosting boxes, wildlife gardening, Yellow Book, Yellow Book Gardens

birds garden photography garden wildlife gardening ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs Winter Gardening winter gardens

My Garden Journal – January

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date February 9, 2015
2 Comments on My Garden Journal – January

As promised I am creating a garden journal throughout the year to celebrate our garden and this is the first post looking at January. I am writing and painting in my personalised “Moleskine” notebook, a special gift from our daughter and son-in-law, and as the first photo shows it has been embossed with the name of my blog. A beautiful and most luxurious book which feels a pleasure to handle and an honour to write in and a delight to create drawings and paintings in.

Early on in my journal I have written about the Avocet, the beautiful wader after whom we name our house and made an attempt at a drawing of one.

I wrote about the scented shrubs that keep us company in the January garden.

Daphne bhuloa “Jacqueline Postil” and Sarcococca confusa.

Cornus mas, the Cornelian Cherry and our two Hamamelis “Diane” and “Jelena”.

I moved on to write about our Winter Flowering Jasmine and once again got out the watercolours.

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We enjoyed a couple of magic moments involving birds of prey in January and I recorded them in my journal.

What a pleasure to have a Merlin in the garden and a Marsh Harrier flying over – I don’t expect that will happen too often!

Enjoy reading a few pages ……

Well, that is it for my January journal. February is here already so my journal is gaining new pages, which will feature in my next Garden journal post.

Tags birds of prey, garden journal, hamamelis, January, journal, scent in the garden, scented shrubs, witch hazels

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Croft Castle Month by Month – January

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 18, 2015
2 Comments on Croft Castle Month by Month – January

Welcome to the first post in my series of monthly posts looking at a local garden. Throughout 2014 we traveled northward through the Shropshire Plains into neighbouring county Staffordshire in order to visit Trentham Gardens.

Throughout 2015 we will travel south to Croft Castle just into our neighbouring county of Herefordshire. We live at the northern tip of the Shropshire Hills, with the welcome sign just three-quarters of a mile away. In order to get to Croft we have to go southward through this range of hills, one of the most beautiful upland areas in the UK. We will enjoy our journeys!

At the entrance building a “Tramper” scooter acted as an effective sign. As we wandered towards the garden we enjoyed views of some of the estate’s ancient trees. These old massive Sweet Chestnuts are hundreds of years old and each year another dies. Luckily new ones have been planted as replacements. A natural mulch of leaves and nut casts are snuggled at their feet.

We soon met a much smaller and younger character, placed to help celebrate wintertime. We were to find many more of his friends. Currently there is an evening event on here based on light and these trees were part of it. We vowed to visit one evening!

We were soon on our way to the walled garden, our favourite part of Croft. To get there we followed a long mixed border abutting a tall stone wall. There was not much to see here in January but it looked full of promise. But we found character number two and three both smiling away just like their colleague we met earlier.

The shop, not open in the winter, is housed in an ancient barn and on shelves at its entrance these hedgehogs caught our eyes. More interesting characters!

A gap in the brick wall enticed us into the walled garden. We always enter with great anticipation, perhaps more so on this visit as we had never visited in the winter before. Either side of the doorway there was signs of colour in the narrow borders. The colours of the berries of an Iris, the mauve flowers of Liriope muscari and the silver of the long thin catkins of Garrya eliptica.

From the open doorway views of the walled garden opened up in front of us. We soon espied different types of trained fruit and clumps of textured perennials in the borders.

The textured foliage was provided by silver narrow foliage of Santolinas and in strong contrast the thin strap-like leaves of the Black Grass, Ophiopogon. This is not a grass at all but in reality a Lily!

There were two very contrasting sorts of trained fruit. Ancient beautifully sculpted apples and a much newer array of grape vines, also beautifully trained. It was so good to see the skills of fruit training created at two very different periods of time.

What made this walled garden extra good for productive gardening was the fact that it was on a slope encouraging the sun to warm up the soil to its maximum. Even in early January the difference in temperature was noticeable. We could feel the change as we entered and exited the walled area. The photo of the door in the wall illustrates the slope and shows how steep it is. The plants also illustrate the effects of the walls protective powers. An Iris was in flower and a Melianthus was in bud. Arum italicum “Marmoratum” was in full marbled leaf.

When we were half way along the second edge of the walled garden we reached the gateway leading out of the garden which in the past had been clearly marked “private – keep out” so we were pleased to discover that it has been opened up for us to explore. Jude was soon on her way through! We had always longed to get a close up look at the old greenhouse range.

We will leave you here for now as we disappear behind the beautiful, unusually shaped blue gate where we found out what new treats were in store for us before we returned to the walled garden. See part two where we discover what was going on behind the blue gate as well as in the rest of the walled garden. We also wander around the rest of the gardens at Croft.

Tags fruit training, fruit., hedgehogs, Herefordshire, Herefordshire gardens, iris, open gardens, The National Trust, trained fruit, walled garden, walled gardens

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Late Arrivals

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 16, 2014

Our winter visiting Redwings arrived the latest ever this year. These migrant thrushes usually arrive late October and into November sweeping in in huge noisy flocks. They are very obvious arrivals but this year they have been more stealthy. They just crept in during December with the first appearing in our garden on December 11th. One or two Redwings at a time dropped in to lunch on the berries we grow for them, the Cotoneasters, Crab Apples and Sorbus. They soon discovered that one problem with arriving at the restaurant late is that some of the items on the menu have all gone. The resident Mistle Thrushes moving in from the woods had already indulged on the Sorbus berries and our Blackbird population had made inroads into the crop of “Butterball” Crab Apples and started dining on the Cotoneaster bushes. You can see from these photos that they were taken during heavy rain! It didn’t stop the birds from feeding though!

One male Redwing seems to dominate, being larger and sporting much brighter markings. His eye stripes are striking and his speckled chest is covered in the blackest and biggest streaks and spots. He is featured in the final two photos of the set below.

One thing we noticed as the berries started getting in short supply was that some House Sparrows mixed in with the Blackbirds and Redwings to gorge on the berries.

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We still haven’t seen any Fieldfares this winter. These winter migrant thrushes usually arrive with the Redwings. There will certainly be few berries left for them when they do come!

Tags autumn, berried shrubs, berried trees, berries, birds, blackbirds, cotoneasters, garden wildlife, House Sparrows, Redwings, thrushes, winter, winter gardens, winter migrants

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Queenswood Arboretum – Part 1 – the Acers

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 3, 2014

Late October heralds arboretum visiting time. Last year we visited Bodenham and Arley which we take a trip to most years but we also traveled a little further afield into Cheshire to the Jodrell Bank Arboretum and the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Over the last five years we have also taken trips to Westonbirt in Gloucestershire, Bluebell Arboretum in Derbyshire.

But there is one closer to us, in fact just an hour away across into Herefordshire, which we have never visited but were reminded of as we watched Carol Klein visit it on the Gardeners World TV programme. So we made up our mind that our first arboretum visit this autumn would be to Queenswood Country Park and Arboretum. It was worth the wait! Come with us as we explore its delights on a dull overcast day occasionally dampened with bouts of drizzle.

We left the car park to follow Lime Avenue which would take us to the Autumn Garden which promised us a painter’s pallet of Acers. There is something special about the gentle scent of woodlands in autumn, comforting and warming, but this was interrupted by the more aggressive unpleasant odour of foxes whose tracks crossed ours periodically as we climbed the gentle slope below the huge limes towering above us. We diverted often! There were interesting trees grabbing our attention every few yards, making progress slow. Tree silhouettes, bark textures, leaf colours, leaf shapes – all there to distract and attract.

The trees had plenty of autumnal features to attract and distract tree lovers such as Jude the Undergardener and I. Berries, peeling bark, silvered leaves, brightly coloured leaves, black branch silhouettes ……………….

When we reached the area called the “Autumn Garden” we were blown away by the collection of Acers with their striped barks, their red and yellow leaves and their sculptural trunks curling away below their leaf canopy. Part way through the Autumn Garden we found this plaque on the “Dendrology Stone” which was presented to Queenswood Arboretum in 1981 by the International Dendrology Society recognising the quality of its young trees, layout and public access. There only 19 arboretum worldwide which have received this award. This emphasises just how important this 47 acres of country park actually is.

But there was far more to see here with trees and shrubs to discover around every corner.

But let us enjoy a journey around the delights of the Acers before we get distracted further.

We enjoyed a well deserved coffee break on one of the many benches we found within the glade of Acers with a wonderful view. We sat to enjoy our coffee and listened to the Woodpeckers and Nuthatches in the tree canopy. Jays entertained us collecting up acorns, beech mast and sweet chestnuts. This is the view from the seat we chose to take our coffee break sat on. How good is that!

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In part two we shall be seeking out an old orchard and the “Reader’s Seat”.