May garden

And this week’s stars are . . . . . the siskin family!

Saturday 23rd May 2015

Sunday

It was unfair of me to criticise our birds’ lack of intelligence last week.  Their apparent aversion to the new niger feeder must have just been due to a natural suspicion of anything unfamiliar.  I can sympathise.  It always takes me a while to relax about using any new bit of household equipment - and new computer stuff always gives me nightmares and usually stays in its box for a few days until I get up the courage to unpack it.  On Sunday the first brave male siskin took the plunge!

The bird feeder has been attracting lots of customers.  The greenfinch was back . . . eating sunflower seeds with a friend.  But nothing much is happening in the bird box although Tim saw the great tits there again briefly so they don’t seem to have abandoned the nest yet.  Without opening the box, it is hard to tell whether there is a problem - or whether the eggs were laid later than usual and they are still brooding.  We don’t want to risk disturbing them so we will have to curb our curiosity.  They definitely aren’t feeding babies yet.

In the evening I took a photo of the clematis after light shower of rain.  I sent it to my daughter and commented “ Pity I can't email the perfume.”

Monday

Two Wood pigeons landed on front lawn and strolled around  in the rain pecking at something. They appeared to be eating weed leaves - possibly sorrel. 

 They have been nesting in the conifer in the next door garden again this year but I haven’t been wasting time trying to photograph them landing on the tree.  I still remember how frustrating that was last spring.  We see them flying around frequently, and there is constant cooing in the glen, but they seldom land in our garden.  

When the rain stopped I got up the courage to “liberate” a small blackthorn bush at the edge of the plantation.  I have wanted one for years but haven’t seen any for sale in the garden centres.   I hope I got enough root for it to survive the ordeal.  It has been planted up by the new bit of fence at the top of the garden (in the “sandpit”).  It wasn’t the best possible place as it is too close to the climbing roses - but it is windy up there and the blackthorn needed to be supported by a good stake or to be tied to the fence.  I didn’t have a suitable stake so the position by the fence seemed to be the next best option.

The male siskin was back on the niger feeder for a second day in succession and was becoming quite possessive.  A  female  chaffinch tried to join in and was threatened. 

I believe the collective noun for goldfinches is a charm of goldfinches.  I wonder whether siskins and chaffinches have collective nouns.  I would suggest an aggression of siskins and a squabble of chaffinches!

Later a female siskin arrived.  She dithered around for a while but she eventually worked out how to extract the seed.

And then a goldfinch got up the courage to join her and try the niger seed.

Tuesday

I did another session on the path.  I may even finish removing the grass by the end of the week.  Removing grass paths is part of my plan to make the garden more manageable.  I am approaching my mid-seventies and it is becoming increasingly obvious that I am not getting any younger.  The easier the garden is to maintain - the longer I will be able to manage it.  So I need to do some hard work now to save work in future.

The plants up in the sandpit are looking all right - so far.  On my way back from a tour of inspection, I noticed something odd on the new leaves on our small oak near the gate into the plantation.  At first glance I thought the small round objects might be ladybirds but on closer inspection I realised that they must be small wasp galls.  I removed the leaves and brought them inside to photograph with the old galls  (oak nuts)  that I picked up a few weeks ago.

The first rhododendron is flowering.

It isn’t my favourite - which is just as well because the plant doesn’t look very healthy and may not last long.  A couple of branches have already died back and been removed.  I tried putting a thick mulch of leaf mould under the shrub but the cats from over the road used it as a toilet and I don’t think the plant enjoyed the cat manure.  So now it has a layer of stones on top of the leaf mould to deter the cats.  Unfortunately my garden seems to be a cat magnet.  They used to frequent the front garden only - when the back garden was zoned for free-range dogs.  But now they wander everywhere although I chase them out if I see them.

My favourite of the rhododendron family has to be the azalea mollis.  This is partly because we can enjoy it from the comfort of the living room. It is right outside the window.  I can even see the top of the shrub from my computer desk on the far side of the room.

But the main reason must be the incredible colour of the flowers.

There has been very little butterfly activity again this week.  The little green veined white butterfly is still around and is occasionally joined by a second one.

Wednesday

I came inside after weeding buttercups in daffodil bed and saw the first baby bird of the year.  It was a  baby siskin begging for food from its parents.  It was quivering its wings frantically . . .

. . . but the parents were busy eating niger seed and ignored it.

At times it quivered so violently that it nearly took off!

If it hadn’t been begging for food, I might not have realised that it was a baby.  It  looked almost exactly like the female - just slightly yellower and a bit plumper.  That may be because it had its feathers fluffed out - or possibly it was was fatter because it had been sitting in the nest being waited on hand and foot by the parents.

The first hawthorn flowers opened.

On the subject of hawthorns, I found an interesting photo of two traditional Manx “hawthorn tables” in George Quayle’s book.  He says they were usually about three feet high and from six to twelve feet in circumference and were used for drying milk buckets and dish cloths.  My rather amateurish attempt at a hawthorn table is probably a bit too tall and not flat enough - in need of trimming.  This is a tricky task as the tree is growing on a bank and it is hard to reach across the top.  I don’t have any milk buckets that need drying but the hawthorn may fulfil another more fanciful purpose  as  protection “against all kinds of evil.”

There is a good clump of bluebells up behind the hawthorn table.

Thursday.

I got down to some serious garden work.  First mowing and then trimming edges.  Tim loaded all the garden refuse and other recycling into the old car for a trip to the tip.  But the car wouldn’t start.  The battery was dead.  So we had to take it to Ramsey to see whether it could be recharged.  

The first oriental poppy opened near the front steps.  It isn’t the bud which I photographed three weeks ago.  That one was affected by the cold, wet weather and didn’t manage to open fully.

Friday.

I finished trimming the edges of the lawns.  That is not quite true because it is never finished.  By the time it is all done the bits which were done first are growing again.  Then I had another session of digging out grass before we did the shopping in Ramsey.  We bought a new battery for the red Golf because the old one turned out to be terminally dead.

The wildflower bank is changing with the seasons.  The primroses, violets bugle and barren strawberries which attracted the bees earlier in spring are now overshadowed by taller plants.  There are drifts of the delicate white pignut flowers and the first meadow buttercups have opened.  Soon they will have had their turn and the even taller meadowsweet, wild oregano and knapweed will will taking over.

The garden is bursting at the seams with self-seeded yellow poppies, bluebells and aquilegia.  They are quite useful because they hide the ugly dying leaves of the snowdrops and daffodils.

Saturday  

The second oriental poppy opened and is rather a fine specimen.

These “granny’s bonnets” have actually burst out of the garden and seeded themselves outside our gate.

And finally, I am rather good at taking “if only” photos.  Photos which would be great if only I had taken them a fraction of a second earlier or later . . . if only the subject hadn’t moved . . . if only I had held the camera steady, etc. etc.  Here is an if only photo of a male siskin feeding his two babies this morning.  If only the camera had focussed on the birds instead of the flowers in the foreground . . .

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.”  

Wet garden

Not the best of weeks . . .

Saturday 9th May, 2015

Not the best of weeks for sunlovers, or for out of date old left wing sympathisers like me. It rained most of the week and the wrong side won the UK elections.

It started raining while I was finishing last Saturday’s post and continued for twenty-four hours.  We had nearly two inches of rain.  47mm to be more exact, which was slightly more than we had in the whole of April.  So the garden had a really good watering and I  had an excellent excuse to be lazy.

The skies didn’t clear until after lunch on Sunday so we cancelled our visit to the swans and spent most of the weekend  indoors - trying to keep warm.  These cold snaps after the central heating has been turned off are a nuisance.  It seems too wimpish to turn it on again.  So we freeze for a while before deciding that we might as well be  wimps.

I took a few photos through the kitchen window on Sunday morning - of soggy birds on the feeder.  This little female siskin spent ages pecking away a the peanuts because her preferred food, the sunflower seeds, hadn’t been replenished yet.

After the rain stopped, Tim filled the sunflower seed feeders and the goldfinches arrived.  They are our fussiest customers.  The other finches and the tits will make do with peanuts after the sunflower seeds are finished but the goldfinches show no interest in peanuts. I read that they are particularly fond of niger seed but they seem happy enough with the sunflower seeds.

Bank holiday Monday brought sunshine but there was still a cool breeze.  We took the blue Golf out for a drive.  It spends most of its life sitting in the garage because we use the old car for short trips to the supermarket and the tip.  The north of the Island was looking very pretty . . . green fields and bright gold gorse hedges.  There were also a number of fields of rape in full flower - carpeted with brilliant yellow.

We stopped briefly at the Point of Ayre and I took a quick photo through the car window of the silhouette of the mountains.

The cherry trees down by the road were looking good when we returned home.  I think they have benefitted from the work done on the beeches about eighteen months ago.  We got some young men in to cut down one large beech by the gate and to prune the lower branches on the others.  Now the cherries get more light.

After lunch we walked up through Skyhill plantation - our first walk for a week.

Butterflies are still in short supply.  Only two sightings of unidentified whites so far this week, one in the back garden and one in the broadleaf section of the plantation.

The dry weather was short lived.  By Tuesday morning it was raining again. 

(PS Ditto Wednesday morning. I checked the rain gauge on Tuesday afternoon.   Another 24mm of rain had fallen.  If you add in Wednesday’s 5mm, it adds up to 3 inches so far this month and the first week isn’t over yet. 

PPS Total for this month up to 4 inches on Saturday morning).

I saw a male blackbird collecting food for babies on front lawn in the rain.  I am not sure whether his nest is in the holly hedge or the conifers in the next door garden.

After writing about niger seed on Monday I was tempted to buy some from the pet shop when we went in to stock up on bird food.  It is hard to resist impulse items.  I put half a cup in the empty mesh basket on feeder where Tim usually puts sunflower seed.  We hoped for some signs of enthusiasm about this new addition to the menu but apparently our birds thought it was dangerous - or didn’t recognise it as food.  They refused to even look at the seed until I put some sunflower seeds in the basket too.  Eventually the siskins started eating the niger seed and on Wednesday morning the chaffinches had joined in.  No sign of interest from the goldfinches yet.

We are not sure about the state of play in the bird box.  The great tits are still visiting the box, especially in the early morning . . .  possibly sitting on eggs.  Tim even saw one taking in a bit more nesting material this week. They are not feeding babies yet.   Last year the babies left the box on May 26.  If they are on a similar timetable this year they should be due to start feeding soon because the babies are fed for about three weeks before they leave the nest..

On Tuesday I photographed the buds on the pink clematis.  I love the creepers on the railings in front of the house but the long shoots are a nuisance.  They need to be cut back almost weekly because they seem to grow a couple of inches every day and - if they are allowed to - they try to block our access up the steps to the front door.  

The next morning  I saw that the first flowers were opening . . .  ten days later than last year.

I also saw that the first flowers on the white clematis had opened.  This was a gift from a friend last spring and I have been debating the best place to plant it for a whole year.  I moved it into a large pot and just waited for inspiration to strike.  Now I think I know the perfect place but it will have to wait in its pot until the oriental poppies have finished flowering and die back because I will have to stand on them to dig a hole.  I want to plant it on the south side of the wisteria.  I think it will look good if it climbs up the trellis on the wall and hides the bare lower branches of the wisteria.  Unlike the pink one, it isn’t a rampant variety of clematis so it should be easy to keep under control.

There are a lot of buds on the wisteria but it we will have to wait a bit longer for the flowers.

Thursday promised to be one of those perfect spring days but didn’t quite live up to its promise.  There was a fair amount of cloud lurking around and a coolish breeze.  Although there were plenty of sunny spells it didn’t warm up as much as we hoped.  But it did warm up enough for another butterfly sighting.  This one was a male orange tip.  It posed very nicely for photographs in the sunshine but I was hoping for a cloud to come over because I knew the bright sun would bleach the deep colour of the orange tips to his wings in a photo.  

When a cloud eventually did oblige, the butterfly promptly folded up his wings and didn’t spread them again until the sun reappeared.   You can see the true colour of the upper wing in the narrow strip visible above the wing nearest the camera in the next photo.

It was very frustrating but I did get the best orange tip photos that I have taken so far even if his wing tips look more gold than orange.

While I was chasing the butterfly I saw one of my favourite bumblebees on the bugle - a common carder.

After lunch we walked in Skyhill plantation again.  I stopped at the top to photograph the new cones on the larch . .

. . . and the Scots pine.

The seasons are changing. The sheep have been moved from the high pasture where they have been grazing all winter and replaced with cattle for the summer.

We were all busy early on Friday.  I was loading the dishwasher and looking out of the window, Tim was catching up on the news on TV in the aftermath of the UK elections (which I have been trying to ignore as far as possible because it is too depressing), and a blackbird and thrush were collecting food for their children on the back lawn.  I saw the blackbird first.  He was obviously a successful hunter gatherer.

Then the thrush arrived with one small bug in its beak.  I watched its hunting tactics.  It hopped around for a while and then stopped in a sunny spot and stood there patiently, listened, looked around and finally pounced.

After dithering for an hour or two, I decided to mow the grass before our shopping trip.  

And finally my blogging week ended the same way that it started.  Wet. It started to rain as soon as we got home from the shops and I watched the rain falling on the new mown grass with a smug satisfaction that only another gardener will understand.