Welcome to my garden

This is my patch. My 'small' garden. How small is small? Well I will maybe get around to measuring it sometime but the actual size is not really the point. It isn't huge, it hasn't got its own lake. There is no river at the bottom, no old barns or other such wildlife sanctuaries.  It is just a run of the mill back yard. We also have a shared gravel parking area and driveway and a south facing front garden given over mostly to gravel at the moment but with huge lavender bushes and a clematis.

It faces North so for much of the year it is cold and damp.  If you imagine an A4 piece of paper portrait and folded in 4 and unfolded again then the garage takes up a one quarter. We have had to house an oil tank and outside boiler. There is lawn, borders, a patio area, shed and a tree.

Oh and there is a pond!  We had to replace a lot of the garden about 7 years ago due to an oil leak and added a raised pond then.  It isn't as wildlife friendly as perhaps a more easily accessible ground level pond but we now have a small grand-daughter so I don't feel as compelled to fill it in for safety.

The tree is an ornamental almond and we use to to hang the bird feeders.  They are missing from the photos as we'd taken them down as Storm Katie arrived last night.  The bird table has seen better days and needs replacing.

There is another challenge my garden faces on being wildlife friendly - my husband! It's not that he dislikes wildlife, he's just not so keen on the 'wild' part. Whilst I am untidy and like the garden full and overflowing, he prefers a neat lawn and weedless borders. We constantly do battle over the summer as I squeeze in another bee-friendly plant and he cuts things back regardless of the time of year! He has come round to the bird feeders and the mess that they, and the bird visitors, can produce, and as he can't access the back of the oil tank this is my untidy and hopefully hedgehog friendly area. It remains to be seen what he makes of the insect hotel I hope to add!

Small garden wildlife

I saw a fabulous feature on Countryfile last night about a woman who has camera traps set up in her garden. She had captured footage of all sorts of wildlife from kingfishers to harvest mice. It was an impressive garden and a very impressive (and probably expensive) technical set up.  I was totally jealous of both as I stood in my spare bedroom looking out of the window down onto my own small garden wondering how I could ever get anywhere near the sort of film and photographs shown on the programme.

I can never hope to compete. Much as I often dream of a much larger garden we are happy in the home we have had for over 30 years and so I have to work with what I've got!  I hope therefore this blog will also serve as a diary of the wildlife seen on my patch and I hope it will in time be proof that you don't need lots of land or lots of money to attract, help and watch wildlife.

Collared dove nest in our almond tree, 2015

Inland Seal

I’ve heard of seals being spotted in the Great Ouse near Swavesey before but all the times we have walked there I’ve never seen one. Until yesterday. It was swimming up a channel, happily diving under and coming up a bit further along. We thought it was a dog at first as there was a family coming towards us, It swam by, looked up before diving under again. Needless to say I missed it with the camera and not wanting to disturb it too much by following we let it on it’s way.

It is not actually that unusual at all to see seals on the Ouse, although it’s about 40 miles from the sea they are curious and follow the boats, and I guess there is less competition for fish.

Note: Sadly it was reported about a week later that a dead seal had been found.

Just as a record this morning we also saw buzzards, Goldeneye, Pochard and Wigeon.

Goldeneye (M)

'My' barn owl

Our third sighting of the barn owl now when we've visited West Stow so it's now, of course 'my' owl! Today having parked outside the country park we spotted him through the trees - he's incredibly easy to see now, so bright against the dull trees, and yet people parked up their cars, dogs got out to be walked, people intent on their day he went mostly unnoticed. Except of course we were already on the look out in case he was around. Just after the photo below he took flight, huge wings flapped only once or twice then he disappeared down into the heath before taking off again and disappearing out of view. So incredible.

Barn owl

We have seen a barn owl once before at West Stow Country Park but unfortunately it spotted us before we saw him and he took off from the his look out post before I had chance to focus the camera. On our last visit however we saw him from a distance and hoping he would go for the same post I was ready. He settled as predicted and we watched him from afar then gradually moved a little bit closer. He flapped his huge wings and moved a few fence posts down! He was huge (I'm assuming it's a he but I can't tell) we turned off leaving him to hunt then caught a glimpse again through a small wooded area. So chuffed to finally get a fairly decent photograph.

Sparrow hawk alert

I have seen sparrow hawk in the garden before, in fact we have had one demolish her lunch of collared dove on the grass while my husband and daughter watched through the conservatory door. Today I happened to glance out of the kitchen window and there was one sitting right in the almond tree, surrounded by empty feeders!

Fly Agaric hunting

There is nothing quite like the red and white of the Fly agaric toadstool for a great photo. The mushroom of fairy stories and Brownie promises never fails to raise a smile when you see it poking out from the leaf litter. West Stow Country Park around half term has provided me with great specimens so we walked there today in the hope of finding some more but, whether it's not a great year or maybe we were too late and they were over, the only ones we came across were mostly fully open, faded and spoiled.  I managed to find one that after a bit of tidying gave me the images below but otherwise I guess I'll have to wait until next year.