Long-Tailed Tits

Not the huge flocks of them which some people get, and which have had in the past, but quite a few of them. They really go for our fat balls from the RSPB which have dried insect bits in them - okay so the idea of a lump of lard with bits of dead insect may not appeal to you or me but the birds love them! In addition we've had great and blue tits around on the feeders too, and the usual two grossly overweight pigeons which I think only survive the cat population because they're deemed to high-risk as prey because of their size because they've got a take-off run like a fully laden airliner...

The primroses and snowdrops are out in flower, I'm not sure if we planted or inherited these, or even if they're the actual wild ones, but they could be!

Birds and future building projects

Well we keep having lots of birds in the garden, nothing exotic but there is nothing wrong with blue tits, chaffinches and spadgers! The odd blackbird has been hopping around too which is always good. On the plant side of things, we have snowdrops and primroses, though the garden still lacks the early flowering things which would be so useful for insects like Bumble Bees and which I have so much trouble establishing. This is something on which I need to work NOW in time for next spring of course.

I've got a couple of building projects to do this year as well, a new bike shed and a reconstruct of the ricketty old tree house which I took down before it fell down. Both of them I think will offer the opportunity for added wildlife value by covering them with plants, and possibly including nest boxes in the construction

Birds

After a depressing year in which birds seemed almost absent from the garden there seem to be quite a few around at the moment. The months of wet weather last year seemed to have resulted in the birds not showing themselves and I was worried that the population had plummetted as the feeders were essentially just going mouldy where they hung. But at the moment both feeders are being visited again and over the past couple of days we've had chaffinches, great tits, and long tailed tits about. With any luck a drier year this year might get our numbers back up again..though it costs me more in wild bird food; my loss is the RSPB shop's gain of course! It would be nice if the bird boxes I put up last year are used this season

The pond is unfrozen but needs a good clean up, and plans to replant round the back of it must be a priority this year, as is the planting of more service station plants generally. No sign of Ash dieback in our hedge, which doesn't have a lot of Ash trees but there are a few mixed in with the other stuff. I'd like to get some holly in there somewhere, there are gaps...