Fledgling Goldfinches

We had a gang of very young Goldfinches on the bird feeders, must be freshly fledged from somewhere! Maybe they were nesting in the hedge...

Update

Well, despite regular calendar reminders to update this I keep forgetting! Which is a pity as there is lots going on in the garden at the moment.

1) Bumble Bees - we can haz them! Which is good because they're a bit endangered in the UK at the moment, but we always have a few buzzing around. Sue did the BBC Springwatch BioBlitz the other weekend and found we had more than one species of them.

2) Pond - I pulled out some of the more rampent weeds from the pond to open up some water, much to the annoyence of one of the newts! Going carefully through the weeds I pulled out to make sure any creatures got back into the pond I found a HUGE dragonfly lava which has clearly been lurking among the weeds for a couple of years and must be pretty much fully grown. We get damsel flies over the pond but I've not seen a dragonfly...though this beastie means we must have them now and again

3) Bird Boxes - again, no use of either box this year. This is odd as they're in a good place according to the books but not of interest to the birds. We did have a blackbird nesting in the hedge this year though, as we had a few juvenile blackbirds appear on the lawn one day hopping around and getting the hang of this flying lark! Also no sign of our custom-made, built in bat box being used..again..

4) Hedge - all new planting from a couple of years ago has got away in a manner which can only be called 'rampant', might even get some sloes on the sloe bush.

The only slight disappointment is that there has been no sign (or sound) of hedgehogs yet this year - but I'm optimistic we will hear them at some stage.

It's all happening!

I've missed a week or two of posting updates. Things have been happening in the garden though.

1) There are plenty of surviving tadpoles in the pond, despite the frozen weather when the frogspawn was around. They've dispersed throughout the weed rather than all clustering over to one side. In previous years a lot have failed to develop into frogs, which many pond owners are finding over the past few years but nobody can explain it seems

2) I've not seen the newts yet, but Sue's seen them several times. In addition she's pretty sure she's seen a Dragonfly or Damselfly nymph wandering around among the weed - we do have both over the garden so it's quite likely there are one or two in there. We had several hatch out in our old half-barrel pond years ago, and we've got the right sort of plants, so with any luck we'll have nymphs in there. Actually the mare's tail needs clearing out, but I'm not sure how to do it with all the tadpoles around!

3) First bumble-bee of the year last week, which is always a good sign. We also had a queen wasp in the house, I'm all for wasps but as I'd rather she DIDN'T nest in the house I evicted her. Hope she finds somewhere her nest won't be in the way of people so she can produce lots of these energetic and maligend garden predetors.

4) Still lots of birds around on the feeders, but none taking an interest in the bird boxes!

Pond life

While it's been really dull here for the last couple of weeks, the birds have continued to enjoy the fat balls; especially the long-tailed tits who are regular visitors.

Some of the frog spawn appears to have survived being frozen so we may be positive for tadpoles, and we have seen two, if not three newts! We normally have three of them, though we're never convinced we have newt-poles, but it's always great to see them walking purposefully among the weeds in the pond.

Frozen Spawn

It looks as though some of the frog spawn has frozen during the cold snap and become unviable, having gone an unpleasent white colour. But the stuff which was at the bottom of the clumps may be alright. In truth, we've not had much luck with frog spawn over the years as we tend to have lots of tadpoles which then fail to develop into frogs; a problem which many people have but about which there seems to be no agreement as to root cause. While it's been very cold here again, it hasn't been as freezing so let's hope this is the end of the iced over pond for this year and that some of the spawn will hatch okay. Perhaps a jar on the kitchen windowsill might be an idea...

Lots and lots of birds in the garden still, including regular appearences by the long-tailed tits. No sign of any exploring the nesting boxes yet, but I'm hopeful.

Frogspawn!

I went down the garden on Sunday, while cleaning out the terrapin tank, and saw that the pond was well supplied with frog spawn. There had been none earlier in the week so it must have been laid in the previous couple of days. Then later in the day there were loads of mating frogs so there is now even more! The only problem is that we've had a cold snap this last day and the pond has frozen - let's hope some of it has survived, the opinion online seems to be that generally some of the spawn survives freezing even though a lot doesn't. Keep you posted...

Spadgers

It was the week of heat one of the primary schools nature quiz, and Sue was team manager. They camme second but none of it can be held at the door of herself who moved heaven and earth as part of her preparation for this event - the number of flash cards and information sheets she's made and the time she put in working with the kids was epic. They're hoping they may get through to the next round as a highest scoring loser as they did really well.

The feeder visitors this week have included a lot of house sparrows, which also love those fat balls with insect bits in them. We need to be nice to sparrows these days as they're not as numerous as they were when I was younger - we used to have one of the old fashioned red nets full of peanuts and it was usually covered in sparrows. The long-tailed tits have been around a lot, as have blue tits and great tits. I'm hoping for use of the nestboxes this year!