Worms, Sheep and Creativity

Lovely sunny afternoon yesterday so managed to mow the grass. I wonder how many more times it will need cutting this year. Was someone laughing at me heaving the mower about.



All day there were three Crane Flies on the outside of the kitchen window. They hardly moved at all. I have always know these as Daddy Long Legs for obvious reasons. When a nipper I was terrified of them as dozens (so it seemed)  flitted round the bedroom light. I am assuming these are Crane Flies though they seemed smaller than those normally seen.




Jan of ShySongbird's Twitterings has come to the rescue again. Jan identified the insect as a Folded Wing Crane Fly (Limonia nubeculosa). Thanks Jan.


A regular job here is dropping any uncooked kitchen waste into the wormery. My worms exist on  potato peelings, tea bags and banana skins as their main diet with other bits as they come to hand. Citrous fruit cannot be used but they seem to like Papaya and Melon skins. Damp torn or shredded paper can also be put in, but not the shiny type.

Tiger Worms (Eisenia fetida) are used as they tend to live nearer  the surface and do a great job of turning waste food into a rich compost with the added benefit of producing a liquid which can be diluted to make a useful liquid fertiliser.

Tiger Worms get their name from the pale bands around their reddish bodies. They are smaller and sleeker than your average earthworm. They breed readily and can often be found in compost heaps.



 On our expeditions to the field at the end of the lane I see the sheep in the neighbouring field have been serviced so the Spring lamb production has started. Unfortunately I didn't manage a photo of the ram with his bag of dye tied round his chest but the patches of dye on the rumps of the ewes show that he has finished his part of the process. The ewes seem to look to the ram for protection. Normally if they sense danger they go though a gate into a further field but when the ram was there they gathered round him.



A few days ago Glo of Porcelain Rose left a link to this in a comment. Somebody's creative juices were working overtime again. I do admire people who can think up things like this.





Thank you Glo. Brilliant! Also Glo has left a link to a picture of a sleepy hedgehog HERE. There are many fabulous nature photos on the site.

Last night I got round to watching Autumn Watch and enjoyed the piece about Hedgehogs. Interesting that hibernating animals have to wake up every so often to get rid of waste products, then need a short normal sleep before going back into hibernation.

Another Winter Garden Visitor Returns.

Such a kerfuffle this morning in the bushes just over the fence near the feeders. At first I thought it was just the House Sparrows catching up on the morning gossip. A short while later I spied a couple of Long Tailed Tits flitting near one of the feeders apparently having an argument with the Goldfinches. For quite a while after that I could see a group of about six LTTs dashing about the branches. Never staying in one place for more than a couple of seconds. All the time they were there the other small birds had to keep shuffling about to get out of the way. The Goldies sat on the highest branches keeping well out of it. While the LTTs were there not one bird came down to the feeders though there were many hanging about waiting for their breakfast.



This time I only managed a few grainy shots of the LTTs but now they have returned there should be more opportunities in the future and hopefully some video of them later in the year.

I don't know whether the Heron still visits the pond but I have set up a wildlife camera which I hope will capture a shot of anything which does. The pond is hard to see from the kitchen and the few visitors I have seen are away as soon as they spot any movement. The camera works on movement detection day or night and uses IR flash at night to take b/w photos.

Here the camera is temporarily set up while I find the best position for it and work out how to make it secure enough to leave out all the time. It is battery operated and should run for 30 days before they need changing.



It does detect movement, even some distance away as this capture of Bobby shows. Also interesting are the reflections in the windows. Now I understand why so many birds fly into them at certain times of day.



No doubt it will capture some strange creatures but hopefully not too many like this. ;)

Friday at the Flicks

There are usually a couple of Goldfinches which insist in eating upside-down. I think they found that they don't get involved in squabbles quite so often when they avoid the perches.



I had temporarily taken down one of the feeders while I was cutting down the Sunflower. By the lunch time rush I had forgotten to put it back up so there were six perches less than normal and a sudden influx of House Sparrows.



Have a great weekend everyone.

New Nest Box

What I had really gone to see the other day when I visited Woodthorpe Hall Garden Centre was their selection of nest boxes. In the past I had seen they stocked some with cameras built in and I was hoping they were still available. The demo box was on view but I could not see any on sale. On asking an assistant he went and checked and found the last one in store which had a colour camera. It would appear they had not been selling well and that was likely to be the last of that type there so I purchased it.

The old black and white camera in my home brew (Heath Robinson) box had failed and I don't think the box was the right size so I decided to replace that one. The camera in the new box is colour only though it does have white light LEDs which are adjustable for brightness. The main design fault is that the adjuster is next to the camera where it would have been more sensible to my mind to have that control near the power supply. Anyway I adjusted them to somewhere near pale Moon light so I could have some sort of picture at night.

The box is very substantial and all sections are fixed with screws making it easy to adapt for different birds and for cleaning. I decided to remove the top front section so it would be a Robin box. That way there would be plenty of daylight for the camera. The camera is in an enclosed section at the top and the lens pokes through a hole looking down into the box. After much cursing and wobbling on a precarious step stool I managed to fix it in some large evergreens.



Video pictures look good so now it is back to the old waiting game to see if there are any takers next Spring. The last box was only visited twice that I saw and that was by a Great Tit which was looking for insects to eat. In the photo it looks as though the box is in full daylight but in fact I used flash as it is a reasonably shady spot.

Honey still is still AWOL. It is well over a week now since any Hedgehog visited the feeding area. The video is on auto capture but the only things which have triggered the recorder has been rain (plenty of that on many nights), a spider which insists on having a web in front of the camera, and the odd cat. Since I installed the Cat Gard there has only been one cat  on a couple of occasions but it passes through quickly and doesn't hang around any more. Honey had stopped visiting before the cat deterrent was installed so it isn't that which is keeping her away.

The Devil's Backbone and Other Plants

One house plant I have grown on and off for many years is a Bryophyllum. (bryophyllum daigremontianum) Not really a great looker but I find it fascinating. Each plant grows as a tall gangly looking stem with thick leaves edged with serrations. As the leaves mature a tiny new plant grows at each of these indentations producing scores of new plants. Hence one of its nicknames - Mother of Thousands. Another name being the Devil's Backbone. As these little plantlets mature, still attached to the parent leaf, they even grow roots and when fully mature they drop off to start new plants.




Eventually the parent plant will put out flower spikes and produce small pale flowers.
There is a web site devoted to these plants which can be found HERE.

One plant I have wanted in the garden for a long time is the Chinese Lantern Plant (Physalis franchetii). I have tried growing them from seed taken from local plants to no avail so when I spotted some in Woodthorpe Garden Centre I couldn't resist buying a couple, especially as they had been reduced in price! By the looks of the thick strong root system it would appear they could spread rapidly so mine will be container grown. The beautiful thin orange seed cases really brighten up a dull Autumn day looking all the world like Chinese lanterns.



Finally a plant I had to order. I first saw the flowers on the Persian Pink Silk Tree (Albizzia julibrissin rosea)  HERE - middle two photos -  on Crista's blog Nature As Is and fell in love with them. Reading around it would appear they can survive frosts when a decent size as long as they are in a spot sheltered from cold winds so I thought I would give them a try.

Here are my recent arrivals. One very small as yet and the other grown outdoors, though further South in the country, and large enough to be outside all year. They are deciduous and are close to losing their leaves ready for the Winter. Guess who had to investigate what I was making a fuss over.



They will both live in the conservatory for now and I will probably pot the larger one in a container so it can be moved if the weather turns really cold. Although the leaves look very much like those of the Sensitive Plant (mimosa) these are a completely different species and the leaves do not respond to being touched.

The Usual Squabblers are Back for the Winter

Birdy Bistro gets very fraught at times. Goldfinches squabbling at one end. Sparrows and Greenfinches in the middle. Now the Starlings are back for the Winter and squabble at the other end. It's a good job they each prefer different food. The Starlings here prefer the fat balls and peanuts.



The horizontal lines in the background are a reflection of a blind at the opposite end of the conservatory as I was shooting through a window.

Often I can hear Starlings in the tall Leylandii but not see any. They continuously make quiet noises and on this video clip of one you can see the throat almost continuously on the move and often the sounds are produced without opening the beak. There are also a few others nearby.



I always find it a fascinating mixture of clicks and whistles. They only seem to fall silent when there is danger and presumably when they are asleep otherwise it seems to be non stop for most of the day.

What is this Bird Song? - Solved

Last July when walking Bobby early morning past a group of trees I  often heard several birds but could never see what was singing. I recorded this one and seem to remember spending ages listening to song files on the net to no avail. More than likely it is a very common bird and with its single rising note once learned it will be easy to recognise in the future.

Blogger refuses to accept the player widget code from eSnips so I wasn't able to embed it in this post but the link should take you straight to the player on their site.

The sound is stored here: BIRD SONG.

Addendum:

My grateful thanks to Joe of Joe's Wildlife Garden (who found me a very similar sound file) and Frank of The Early Birder who both came up with it being a Chaffinch. It seems to be a variation of the Chaffinch 'rain song'. I had filmed a Chaffinch making its rain song in my post Bird Behaviour back in June but by comparison that one sounds as though it had laryngitis.

A few days ago I spotted this web under the bird bath part illuminated by the Sun.