Tag: garden wildlife

October Working Party

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 22, 2011

Today we held our October working party at Bowbrook Allotment Community. We took advantage of a bonus day of sunshine and warmth. Lots of hard work and lots of laughter – a typical lottie working party day.

Soon the smell of cut hay permeated the lotties as we cut the meadow under the orchard trees. It was a warm herby smell as well as nostalgic. A true sense of the feel good factor.

Above, Dee and Wendy rake up the mown hay in the orchard and below Pete and Jude tidy the long grass from around the logpile. The logpile is there to attract beneficial insects as part of our organic, natural approach to pest control. We welcome ladybirds and their larvae, beetles and lacewing larvae as pest controllers and bees as pollinators.

Before cutting the grass I spotted this group of seedheads – alliums and knapweed. They had shed their seeds ready for next year but I felt I had to record this particularly beautiful and delicate clump in a photo before we cut them down.

Bulbs donated by plotholders were planted around the entrance and the car park, with daffodils going in the car park border and muscari in the gateway borders. The Spring Garden was extended and the Winter Garden path was topped up with chipped wood donated by a local tree surgeon. The final task was to trim the long grass and wildflower stems growing on the wildlife banks.

Tags fruit and veg, fruit and vegetable growing, garden wildlife, organic gardening

garden wildlife

Garden Birds of Prey

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 21, 2011

This week has been a busy one for birds of prey in or close to our garden here in Plealey. While working in the borders in the back garden yesterday we delighted in the site, and it has to be said sounds, of a dog fight between a Red Kite and two Jackdaws. This all went on right above our heads as the Jackies forced the kite low over the garden and then the kite fought back gaining a few metres of height. It gave us the chance to watch the kite’s long wing and tail feathers twisting and turning which gave it extra manoevrability which the jackies matched with their persistence and stubborness.

In the lane near our garden we watched a hobby flying almost at ground level looking like an oversized swift. It was a beautiful grey-backed male. He maintained a constant, and very rapid, flying height of only about 12 inches or so above the tarmac.

This morning we watched our local male merlin hunting through the garden and later found the feathers of a greenfinch – his breakfast – on the lawn. More gruesome was the remains of a peregrine kill – just the wings and tail of a wood pigeon – scattered on the grass path down to the chickens. Why do peregrines always leave the tail and wings but consume every other bit of flesh and bone?

Tags garden wildlife

garden wildlife

Feeding Frenzies

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date August 15, 2011

We have had the pleasure of watching avian feeding frenzies in our Avocet back garden in the last few days. Firstly we watched flocks of noisy crows wildly feeding on flying ants on the hillside behind us. Through our scope we could see their wildness and greed as the ants in the big patch of sloping dry ground took to the air. It seems little gain for such large birds, but perhaps ants provide some essential nourishment. Or some drug!

The ants nesting alongside our garage wall took flight the following day and were instantly gorged upon by robins and blackbirds. How do birds know this is about to happen?

The food source of the third instance was a complete mystery. Early one sunny evening the garden was invaded by dozens of swallows swooping low through the trees and borders, occasionally landing on the roofs of the conservatory and garage. This continued for a good hour with the garden seeming at times absolutely full of swallows performing amazing aerial acrobatics. What entertainment! They put the Red Arrows to shame.

Tags birds, garden wildlife

garden wildlife

Striped Intruder

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date July 30, 2011

This must be the year of the hoverfly, with the garden alive with them every hour of daylight every day, their intensity increasing as the sun comes out. They seem particularly attracted to fennel, echinops and alliums.

There are so many different hoverflies around us, with Britain alone host to 276 species, and many so cleverly copying other insects that we are not aware that we are looking at hoverflies at all. The most obvious one is the yellow striped one, the Marmalade Hoverfly, seen in the photo which mimics a wasp. This is a clever move as wasps are rarely preyed upon by larger creatures, their yellow and black striped colour scheme acting as a warning.

The hoverfly sadly however did not reckon on human beings who kill them falling for their deceit and believing them to be wasps. They do however possess and deploy a “pretend” sting which gives a slight prick but no chemical to sting us.

The hoverflies we see most of in our gardens, the Marmalade Hoverfly, are attracted to plants that can give them both pollen and nectar as they are one of the few insects that are equipped to digest pollen. Apart from copying wasps some take the form of look-a-like bees, flies and some tiny ones have developed to look like gnats.

For organic gardeners hoverflies are true friends as their larvae eat aphids with as much relish as the larvae of Ladybirds, so we should be planting for them and providing shelter for them. On our lottie we plant Phaecelia and Sedums specially for them. We never see aphids on our plot. and similarly at home we select plants for insects in general but keep hoverflies, ladybirds and bees especially in mind.

Two contributions that hovers gift to the garden that are rarely attributed to them are that of champion pollinator and a brilliant indicator of biodiversity. Their presence is a sign of a garden with biodiversity in a healthy state. We should be pleased to have them in so many ways.

Tags garden wildlife, insects

garden wildlife gardening

Sharing my coffee break.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date July 4, 2011

During one of my many breaks for coffee whilst gardening I was joined by this little chap. He stayed for a while – long enough in fact for me to fetch my camera and take his portrait. While I enjoyed my coffee he perched on the seat beside me being fed with chewed up Amelanchier berries provided by his mum.