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.

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.

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...

Mad as a pond full of frogs..

And the pond has been FULL of frogs this weekend, we've been counting somewhere between 10 and 15 at any one time, all croaking away. There only seems to be one clump of frog spawn as yet, which makes us wonder if there are a lot of males and only one female in the pond. But everywhere you look there are frogs, on the weed, under the weed, swimming around...  In previous years we've been quite worried about the number of tadpoles which do not metamorphose properly into frogs, but clearly there must have been quite a number which did given how many have returned as adults. We also got a brief view of a newt in there today, probably trying to avoid being squished by amourous frogs I should think. We've had newts consistantly for a couple of years now, though the eggs are hard to spot and newt-poles very furtive, so we don't know if they're breeding. They're common newts, and none the worse for that, including a male who does look very handsome!

Kit also had a hornet sighting in the tree house today. I trust him to identify it correctly because he's seen a hornet before and is unlikely to confuse it with a queen wasp. I'm sorry I missed it because they're such spectactular insects, though I hope it was only foraging and not looking to nest because we don't really have anywhere which can take a hornet nest safely and I'd hate to have them exterminated as they're so amazing and still quite rare - though numbers are up now. Over in the water park my mate Will says they always 'lose' a few bat boxes every year to nesting hornets. So as long as they don't nest, they're welcome to forage here any time.

No sign of any of the birds taking an interest in the new nest boxes yet, but it's still early days for that. But there are loads of them hitting the feeders still so I'm hopeful that the blue tits will make use of them.

Bird Boxes

The first of the bird boxes are up, there are lots of blue tits around the garden so with any luck they'll get used. I've put up two so far but I'd like to put up some more before the spring if I can.There are also lots of birds busy feeding in the garden now, which is great because I was really worried that numbers had plummted from what they were, but now it's looking good again.

It's turned cold again, so the frog-bonkfest seems to have stopped: no frogspawn as yet.