Early Autumn

Well, yet again months have passed by without me putting fingers to keyboard; it's such a shame I can't write via thought, if I could, there'd be loads of blogs to wade through!
Like most of the UK, Spring was our Summer with wonderful hot sunshine and desperately little rain. Since, we have had just enough rain to keep everything from shrivelling until now. In the last fortnight lots of trees are looking stressed and beneath them are great patches of brown grass. In fact, a neighbouring farmer has just said that he believes it is actually drier than 1976. He said that in  '76 stuff looked brown because of hot sun but that he reckons this year is drier. There is no doubt that our hay crop is lighter. Although the grass was thicker it did not make early growth, so was shorter.
Wild birds seem to have had a good year. The early warm weather meant plenty of insects for raising young families. This year the Swifts were the first back, and earlier than usual. The Swallows followed and the Martins were so late I thought that they weren't coming but the sky has been full of them recently. The Swifts have left and last week I thought they'd all gone except the last batch of Swallows but they must have been hunting elsewhere because there are masses hawking over us again. In May 3 Swallows arrived back to their nest in the cowshed and promptly 2 set about trying to fob off the 3rd. I assume it was a youngster not yet leaving home! However, 3 have stayed as a set and earlier this summer I saw them mobbing a sparrowhawk. An amazing sight considering the size difference. As Summer has progressed I am now not surprised at their audacity as they are particularly aggressive and divebomb every time one goes near the shed.

Sabbatical over!

Enjoying the Autumn sun.

Well, I've finally got around to putting words onto virtual paper! The day they invent a thought writer I shall be happy. In my mind, (I was going to say, mentally, but feel that's too near the truth!), I've written this several times.

Now to catch up where we left off in May 2010!

When Spring finally arrived it was later than in recent years but flowers were sensational. (Everybody has commented on what a fantastic Spring 2010 was, flowerwise.) Here it was also a very dry and warm time, and proved to be the only really lovely weather we had all year, ~  by the time hay was ready to be cut British Summer had arrived! Fine weather brought with it a good population of orange tip butterflies and overwintered tortoiseshells, though oddly I only saw two ringlets. The primroses and ladies smock were fantastic.

One of our Spring excitements was a pair of wild mallard that nested on the big pool by our yard. We were thrilled when one morning Mum and nine babies were swimming on the edge. Mum managed to keep all nine for a week then one morning every trace of the family was gone, not one stray feather was spotted nor was there any sign of a struggle at the nest so we hope that she took them off downstream, not an easy journey from our yard.

As Summer progressed I kept looking for the orchids in the hay meadows but we had a disappointing display, probably because of the earlier drought, the same has to be said for the ragged robin. Also disappointing, later on, was the blue vetch. My 2010 floral finds on the farm were an albino red clover, a  variegated hogweed and a new patch of common helleborine. The latter is a well established colony on the edge of a hay field. I can only think that I missed it in 2009 because it was grazed by deer.



Bumblebee on Echinops



2010 was a fantastic year for insects, with bumblebees in profusion and late summer butterflies very good, particularly common blues and small coppers, but not so many green veined as in 2009. The amount of butterflies surprised me considering that rain was plentiful and often sudden. THE plant to grow for insects is Echinops; bumblebees and butterflies fought for space with myriads of other flyers including wasps! Considering 2009 had seen very few wasps here I cannot believe the number of nests we had in 2010, some of which did get destroyed because they were not in human friendly places and the wasps were aggressive. The wasps launched an attack on my Autumn raspberries and blueberries so unfortunately for them many  ended up squashed. The bumblebees et al meant that new anti wasp techniques were employed. I would wait for the wasps to go on the Echinops and then come from behind with barbeque tongs, followed by quick squashing against a stone. I grew figwort in the garden, intending to have the seedheads for drying but they proved to be a wasp magnet to such an extent that I had to pull them up. I can't say that I have ever noticed that in the wild. Elephant hawk moths must have had a successful season as we had multiple caterpillars lurking on willowherb.


Autumn colour was sensational, probably the result of the dry Spring but here Winter arrived before lots of trees had shed their leaves. The long drawn out Autumn proved a great one for fungi. I can't remember so many fungi all at once, though yet again only a handful of mushrooms, c'est la vie. Blackberries were almost 10/10 for a crop, fruit ripening from August right up till the frost at the end of October. It was also an acorn year. The swallows left late. Recent years have seen them depart about the equinox but 2010 saw them still here at the end of September. They too seemed to have had a good breeding season. Disappointingly few arrived in May but plenty chattered in the late summer evenings. The swifts nest on the house but the swallows and martins use the farm buildings. Another feature of Autumn was large flocks of pigeon. It is years since I have seen pigeon in the numbers that were here, and for weeks too. Surprisingly, only one small flock of fieldfare appeared and they just passed through, not even bothering to demolish the sloes. 3rd October saw a flash flood locally, including here on the farm. The force of the water totally altered the stream bed, cutting it down  by up to eighteen inches in places and making many more little falls with deep pools. The extra fast water brought a dipper back. I have not seen one here for several years.

Like everywhere December saw Winter arrive in style. Here, snow fell on very frozen ground and temperatures sank to at least -16c and we had spectacular icicles on the waterfalls. We had one icicle that was a stalagmite, standing at least 3ft high. There were also horizontal icicles, very bizarre. The harsh weather set in so fast that we saw no snipe and only one woodcock. An unwelcome visitor was a heron, driven to trying to find food in the stream. I say unwelcome because we do not want the heron here too often.



Ice on the stream

  A brief thaw after Christmas ended with another week of snow. During that time five long tailed tits started to visit the peanut feeder and they have now become regulars. One morning my feeding station by the old barn had a select band of visitors, ie, spotted woodpecker, two nuthatch and the long tailed tits. All the other birds had gone to the easy pickings in our front garden. I have a lard mix in a bowl in the front garden and recently the spotted woodpecker is bringing a mate.

January has seen more freeze than thaw and it seems to have been a month of catching up on the logging so rudely interrupted by the snow. During January I saw the same woodcock, I assume, several times, skulking near the stream in the meadow, but still no snipe. We also have a hare in the field under the wood which is not the usual field we see them on. In the last week the red kite is back over the farm hunting. On Sunday 30 January, I saw a tree creeper and a wren. I was particularly pleased to see the wren as I haven't seen one all through the bad weather. One of our usual Winter visitors, a few starlings, have not appeared as yet: maybe they prefer the company of their fellows gathered at one farmyard a few miles from here, literally in their hundreds. Always fun to see but probably not so much fun for the farmer.

2010 proved to be a rubbish year for my market garden efforts so it's back to the drawing board on that one and hoping that 2011 is kinder with the weather. Everything but my tulips, which were wonderful, either got mould or blight or, as summer progressed, drowned.

And that's a precis of 2010, the year of weather!


Hoverfly and friend on convolvulus



Long time no write!

It has taken me 3 years and lots of attempts this season to get a pic of kingcups that I'm sort of pleased with. Their wonderful glossy petals reflect the light so much. Tried pics on both sunny and dull days. This pic taken with me sinking into mud half way up my wellies. Very pleased with this patch of plants, gone from about half a dozen 5 or 6 years ago to the most lovely patch of gold. That is just the pressure of grazing cattle taken away. For the sake of ensuring that this population is safe in 2009 I took divisions of several plants and placed them in another boggy patch upstream, not a thing I am usually in favour of.

Wood Anemone

Essence of Spring.

Close up!

In complete contrast one of my lovely vulgar parrot tulips!

Winter

Snow on layered hedge

Snow hats for burdock seedheads

As wide as an ancient ash!

Have not blogged for ages, excuses this time:- too wet in November to take pics or even to go outside unless neccessary, December frozen or white - too busy having fun to take many pictures. But here are several that did get taken.

Autumn colour

This ash tree, like many here, turned golden this Autumn. 2 days after I took this photo we had a windy night and all the ashes were bare. Moral of the story: always take a pic. when you can

Autumn

I haven't written since the beginning of September, mostly because the computer has been in decline, finally suffering a mental breakdown, however, we discovered it was still under guarantee so recently it has been back to the manufacturer for a lobotomy. So far so good and no frankinsteinish moments yet.

Continuing where I left off:~ we did have one moment of heartbreak, when one wednesday morning I found 2 of our tawny owls run over within a quarter of a mile of each other.
For ages we had had the owls calling to each other across the yard. I am assuming it was two youngsters that got squashed, but it was horribly quiet for about a week, with just the female pitifully toowitting. Then a male started to call and the conversations struck up again. What made both owls be on the road that night is a mystery as there was no change in the weather.

Happier news about the butterflies and dragonflies. I finally saw 2 speckled woods, 3 red admirals and more painted ladies late in September and into October. The dragonflies were late, but September and even late October saw Southern Hawkers patrolling near the pool. It was only the change to more rain than fine that brought most of the insects to a halt.

The dry Autumn brought a long and colourful season, though I wouldn't rate it as exceptional in that the trees dragged on with their leaves so that individual species were good but the overall effect not as spectacular as some years. It has, though, been a wonderful year for fungi, except the one I really want, field mushroooms! I haven't seen one. Now of course, since the beginning of November the rain has arrived and with it a certain lack of enthusiasm to do too much wildlife hunting.

The last week has seen several flocks of starlings, with one popping in on the patch at the back of the house. The ground was nose to tail starling all a chatter. They were incredibly busy finding something to eat and then were gone as suddenly as they'd arrived. Do they send a scout ahead to look for good feeding stations because there wasn't even the odd one about before. I have also noticed small flocks of little birds passing overhead so I guess that winter is not far away.

Tree stump

These are growing on an old oak tree stump. The tree was killed by lightning many years ago. The mosses, plants and jagged old wood make wonderful landscapes in miniature.

Bramble

Bramble leaf in finest Autumn colour.

Poppy

Poppy Fairy Wings

Fly

Here's looking at you!