More garden

Some unexpected visitors.

Saturday 16th May, 2015.

The week started with a stiff breeze and showers of cherry petals . . . like pink and white snowflakes wafting across the front lawn.  There is nothing quite like falling cherry blossom to bring on an attack of the poeticals.  Perhaps it is due to the sense of sadness at the loss of the glorious transient beauty.

But that happens every year and this week will be remembered for a much more unusual sight.  You may remember (or, more likely, may not remember) that I wrote about seeing possible hedgehog droppings in the back garden in the post of April 18.  I also wrote that I didn’t expect to see a hedgehog.  Well, I was wrong, very wrong.

On Saturday evening I came inside after working in the front garden and was amazed to see a prickly bottom in the flower bed under the kowhai tree.

I called Tim, grabbed my camera, and forgot all about cooking supper.  The visitor spent ages fossicking amongst the violets, bugle and wood sorrel  but I got rather frustrated because it didn’t lift its head and all I got was one photo after another of a prickly back and maybe one eye if I was lucky.

I gave up and started cooking and then Tim said that the hedgehog had left the flower bed and was walking across the lawn.  I rushed outside.  It didn’t get frightened and roll up into a spiky ball but it did stop and examined me suspiciously before walking on towards the daffodils under the hawthorns.  

Hedgehogs were probably deliberately introduced to the Isle of Man fairly recently.   In a book by Thomas Quayle, esq. General View of the Agriculture of the Isle of Man published in 1812 he states  “. .  .there are no toads nor snakes of any description.  Nor have foxes, hedgehogs, or moles yet found admittance.”

There is a rather nice story about a crate of hedgehogs being rescued from a shipwreck. It may be true but it could be an early version of an urban myth.  The story was recounted in an article in the October 1885 edition of the magazine THE MANX NOTE BOOK: Containing Matters Past and Present connected with the Isle of Man. Edited by A.W Moore, M. A., and illustrated throughout by John Miller Nicholson.  This is the link to the article - Some Remarks on the Mammals of the Isle of Mann - http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/manxnb/v04p119.htm

I think our little resident pest control expert is working overtime to catch up on work after taking time off over winter - or he hasn’t been told that hedgehogs are nocturnal animals.  He was back on Sunday in the early afternoon.  We saw him in the same place but he decided to move down onto the lower terrace, behind the pheasant trap, and spent some time plucking up enough courage to launch himself off the wall.  It wasn’t a very long drop as the wall is only about two or three bricks high at that point.  

After that he went back into “nose on the ground/snuffling through the plants” mode.  We couldn’t see what he was finding to eat but we could see that he stopped frequently to chew on a tasty morsel.  The wind was too cold to stay outside with the camera for long so we left him in peace and came inside to do a bit more hedgehog research.  I found out the they can walk up to 2 kms at night in search of food and that they have poor eyesight.  When we returned later he had disappeared.

Work in the garden continues in fits and starts.  I dither around doing odd bits of general maintenance like weeding, trimming the edges of the lawns, mowing and hedging. I go from one thing to another - never finishing any particular task except the mowing.   And I also try to fit in a few sessions on the “projects”.  The “sandpit” is almost finished.  On Monday Tim hammered in a split pole fence post and I tied up the short section of recycled fencing.

I am not efficient enough to have proper before and after photos of the “sandpit”.  The “before” one was only taken after I had already removed most of the old fence and cut back some of the small trees . . .

. . . and the after one was taken from a different angle before the project was completed.  About half of the compacted earth has been loosened and two rooted climbing rose cuttings planted by the fence but I need another session or two (or three) before I am ready for a proper “after” photo.

The weather wasn’t suitable for feeding gulls on Sunday so we took a packet of thawed bread crusts to the harbour before our Tuesday visit to the shops.  There were some fishing boats tied up at the quay and they wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.  It was low tide and there was almost no water in the harbour.

There wasn’t even enough water for the only pair of swans that we saw to swim up to the quay.  One was asleep.

The other one had been preening. It swam a bit  closer to see what was happening but didn’t seem particularly interested.  So we gave the bread to the herring gulls instead.  They always appreciate our offerings.  Tim made sure that one unfortunate bird with a broken leg got a fair share.  It didn’t seem to be too badly handicapped by having only one functioning leg.

We called in at the pet shop to buy a new feeder for the niger seed.  I don’t think it will turn out to be a worthwhile investment.  The birds seem to be scared of it.  It is made of plastic and has very small holes just above the perches - far too high tech for our country bumpkin birds.  I thought the siskins might be clever enough to use it but they prefer the sunflower seeds or  the more familiar peanut feeders.  

When we returned from Ramsey we saw that our hedgehog was back and was taking a nap in the sun up on the back lawn near a large chunk of slate that we put there for the butterflies.  They like to rest on the sun warmed rock.

I was worried when the hedgehog didn’t move for ages and had a close look using the binoculars.  It was a relief to see that he was breathing. 

 After a while he woke up and walked across the grass.

We lost sight of him behind some shrubs and he hasn’t been seen since.  

There hasn’t been much butterfly activity this week.  I saw an unidentified small white butterfly fluttering up by the wild flower bank on Tuesday afternoon.  Then a robin pounced, missed his prey, and the butterfly disappeared quickly into the neighbouring garden.  On Thursday there were two butterflies in the same part of the garden while I was mowing  - a male orange tip and a green veined white.  

I have finally resumed work on digging out strips of grass for the new path near the plum tree.  I gave up on this project when I had a few twinges of back pain months ago.  Before digging out turfs, I weeded out bits of grass that had come up around the paving slabs and loosened the soil.  I won’t put the paving slabs in their final position or plant anything until I have eradicated all the bits of grass root.  I don’t like bare earth but I shall have to be patient.  Unfortunately the cats from across the road do like the bare soil and think it is an excellent toilet area.  

I have been wandering around as usual - taking photos of the flowers as they open.  The azaleas are providing a splash of colour down in the shrubbery . .  .

and the crabapple blossom is lovely.

I have also been trying to get a good photo of an unusual coloured Welsh poppy down by the gate.  Most of the flowers are a plain yellow (like those in the group photo) but sometimes there is one with darker edges to the petals and occasionally there is one which is almost orange.  It is hard to capture the true colour in sunlight, so I went down in the late afternoon only to find that the flower I wanted to photograph had closed for the night.  Eventually I managed to get an early morning photo when it was partly in the shade and almost open.

On Friday the blogging week ended with another rare sighting - this time a green finch.  They used to visit the garden fairly often but this is the first one that we have seen for many years.  According to the British Trust for Ornithology  “ . . .  their populations took a tumble in the mid-to late-1990s following the emergence of a disease that was new to them.”