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



Butterflies, lousy weather and other stuff!

Yet again it's been ages since I blogged. Not a case of not getting round to it but more weather stopping the nature watch and up to date photographs, that's my excuse anyway! Could have blogged before, but nice to have the witterings softened with a picture!

Picture to the left is of an Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar taken today, 5/9/09, feeding on willowherb. I think it's being affected by our autumnal weather as it's very sloth like in its behaviour and on the same leaf as yesterday. I have been watching out for Privet and Convolvulus Hawkmoth to no avail but for some reason did not expect to find this one.

Considering the lousy Summer we've had I am surprised at the quantity of butterflies that have managed to survive, though whether we will have so many next year will be interesting to see as I'm sure last year's late sunshine helped. Not much evidence of the weather stringing many good days together here, though we can but hope! We, and other farmers around, still have bales of hay waiting to be lugged in, if ever. To date I have recorded 11 different butterflies on the farm this year with Tortoiseshells and Peacocks being conspicuous by their low numbers. I have yet to record Red Admiral, Comma and Speckled Wood here this year yet we have had good numbers of Common Skipper and Small Copper and we have had days when the fields have been awash with Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper. For a few glorious days a haze of Green Veined White fluttered above our top field. As for the Painted Ladies, what happened to them? Having reported the seething mass of caterpillars I hoped to be dazzled by lots of beautiful newly painted ladies yet have only seen a poor average. Shiny, new Ringlet were about for less than a week and I have not seen one since. The verdict, enjoy them while you can! As for photographing butterflies, my best advice is don't take the dog with you! I have spent several hours stalking butterflies and other insects and even waited by strategic flowers such as Thistles and Hardheads only to have "help" arrive at the crucial moment.

I've mentioned before about the fantastic insect population here but I have never seen such a variety of hoverflies and bumblebees as we've had this year. We do have lots of wildflowers in the meadows and lots of umbels such as angelica, but every flower I've looked at is alive with insects. Sadly and more to the point, worryingly, the one insect hardly seen is honey bees.

At the beginning of August we finally found an effective overflow system for the long undammed pool. I was privately betting that within a week we'd see dragonflies over it and to my joy I was proved right. Not lots but hopefully next year there will be more. It totally fascinates me the way pondlife will appear from nowhere.

Many people reported the departure of their Swifts in early August, we were no exception, and it has been very quiet without their screams about the place, though one can't blame them for departing to sunnier places early! Surprisingly, it appears to have been a good year for the Swallows and House Martins. I know the Swallows have raised two broods. The other evening the air was full of whirling, chattering birds. It was lovely to see considering the poor number that returned in the Spring. Depressingly, though, they have started to gather and it will be two weeks, if we are lucky, before we say goodbye to them for this year.

On the subject of orchids yet again! Recently the local paper had an article about a local farmer who reckoned it was a fantastic year for orchids. He put his thriving population of heath spotteds down to close grazing by cattle. Interesting seeing as I'm saying the opposite, however, he doesn't say when those particular areas are grazed. Cutting for hay and close grazing equals the same thing if the timing is right.

Autumn has undoubtedly arrived here on the Welsh Borders. The hazels are definitely yellower than a couple of weeks ago and the oaks have the odd coloured leaf amongst the others. I have never seen a heavier crop of hazel nuts than this year but there'll be none for us as the squirrels have already totally demolished them. Bad luck for the dormice in the adjoining wood. The elderberries, although not truly ripe, are also being devoured already. It seems that it is quite a good blackberry year but their flavour reflects the weather. I have been picking the odd handful for a month now but yesterday was the first real harvest, so I'm looking forward to the crumble! It is a fantastic sloe and damson year so the gin is being purchased in readiness!

In the vegetable garden it has been a season of mixed fortunes. Peas, courgettes and french beans have done well as have sweet peas but potatoes have suffered badly from blight and the crop has been light because the foliage had to be cut off, though one maincrop variety, Sarpo Mira, has proved just how blight resistant it is and it is still thriving.