This is quite long but very entertaining.
And there seem to be strict sitting times for the feed by bird type. A few minutes later.
Category: Garden
Between Ruth and I we’ve accidentally ended up with a theme.
Categories
A nest Box Adventure
We’ve crept into May and the temperatures are swinging with the change of wind direction. Some glorious sunshine but not enough rain. Trees swapping from blossom to leaf and everything looking crisp before it all becomes too overblown.
Categories
A Good Garden Day
13/04/26 Pleasant weather after a cold start. Ruth, Simon and I all pottering. Some sluggish bees about and everything changing fast. Between us we created a log pile from the defunct arch, mended a boundary fence, potted seedlings trimmed back a willow arch, cleared beds of weeds and mulched more tender plants, Cleared the debris from an earlier pond clearance and put it in the dead hedge…….
It is nearly 20 years since I moved into this house and there were old, unused, nest boxes here then. Those were put up by Ruth who arrived here 10 years earlier. Despite that we’ve put up several since. One was hidden in a conifer about 20m away from where I film with an old Fairphone 3 but just about visible from that angle. Then wood pigeons nested and played trampolines on one of the branches and the following winter snows made a big gap in that part of the conifer.
Still no sign of activity, other than a quick investigation. Suddenly from another room, I spotted a bird going in, so rushed up and set things up. Over several days there have now been multiple sightings. Hurrah.
The first video is the best so far. The second just illustrates the effect of a change of wind direction on temperatures and thus insect activity in early April.
Categories
Early April Days 2026
It has turned from reasonably cool to excessively warm and back to cool again in a week. Today has been warm in the sun. After finishing the arch replacement a well deserved ramble to take in the garden’s other pleasures.
Categories
Garden Fashion
Having watched a program on solitary flower bees and having recent logs lying around, I thought we’d give making another bee intended log pile/ stumpery a try. I did manage to overheat a small drill with my usual gung-ho approach. First I had to remove all the suckers from the Hazel, then split some of the logs, then the drilling and piling
In 2015 I made an arch from pollarded Sycamore branches, to mark the begining of the main steps down the garden. I didn’t expect it to last long. A bit later I added a carved sycamore owl to it. The insects were boring holes in to it already.
2026 and high winds have finally brought the arch down. It has done good service for wood from our own garden.
At the same time my latest sculpture project is coming along nicely. Something to smile at till the arch returns. As it is a cherry tree that had to go, carving needs to be done in stages. It is very soft and prone to split at first in parts then dries out much harder. Time to leave it for a while longer and decide how much more work to do when it has dried out more.
Update:
The logs have evolved into a stumpery with loads of holes drilled for bees (and one overheated drill bit casualty) and a slightly less pretty but pretty practical arch has risen up. The roses that collapsed with the old arch will come back and soften its lines. The old wood turned from nuisance sycamore tree to insect friendly arch and will now be reduced to shorter lengths and continue as a wildlife friendly zone. The two wood pigeons in the tree behind the arch fooled me into thinking they were pheasants. Masters of disguise.
