Nature Diary #9

Dog roses

 I’m afraid I haven’t been for many walks this week, as it has been a busy week for gardening work.

The grass fields all around us have finally been cut for silage, leaving several acres looking like they have had a ‘Grade one’ haircut! I was worried about the skylarks, who I thought might have been nesting in the long grass, but I needn’t have worried – they’re far more savvy than that, as they were up and singing over the bean fields this morning, so I think that all is well. Last week I was wondering why I hadn’t seen any deer for a while, until one briefly lifted it’s head from the middle of the field and watched me walk past. I hadn’t realised that the grass was so long that an adult deer was completely invisible when lying down – now they have very few places to hide, but it will probably take a while before they re-emerge from the denser coppices, after all the noise and bustle of silage cutting.

Ox-eye daisies

The hawthorn blossom has very quickly gone over in the high temperatures that we have had in the last week and, this morning, the lake surface was covered in the dead brown flowers, drifting to and fro on the breeze-ruffled surface. There is not much to take their place in the hedgerows but I did spot some dog roses coming into bloom, and some rather pretty ox-eye daisies near the lake.

The birds are much quieter now as they go into nesting mode, just the odd alarm call from the blackbirds as I pass by and a few random birdsongs from the higher trees. Our resident house sparrows are busy feeding young and chirping noisily and the large flock of jackdaws are also raising young and being very argumentative and territorial – it’s not exactly peaceful here!

Chick warning sign

I spotted two of the moorhen chicks under the bird feeder, without adult supervision, earlier in the week. I think this must have been the equivalent of letting the children go to the corner shop on their own, for the first time! Since then I haven’t seen any of the family about and no ‘come here’ calls from the parents, so I think they may have taken the chicks, (who are almost as big as the adults now, but a bit fluffy still) and headed out into the wider world. I feel very privileged that they chose to nest so close by and hope they come back again next year.

Returning from their first solo exploration of the yard!

In another twist to the ongoing Swallow saga – I have found where they are nesting … I think! There is a covered pedestrian walkway that goes through from the yard to the main road, where we keep the wheelie bin, and it has a high, gabled ceiling. There is evidence of two nesting sites right up in the apex, but only one of them has been used, sporadically, over the last few years. The other day I went out to put some rubbish in the bin and thought I could detect fresh droppings on the floor, so looked up, and there was a swallow looking down on me! So, there we are, we do seem to be hosting a pair of swallows, after all!

On a sad note, we have had another fatality in our ever-dwindling chicken flock. Mrs Speckles the very lovely, but totally unproductive, Speckled Sussex hen died a couple of days ago. She had always been a bit of a loner as, when I got her, she was at least a year older than the youngsters I bought, and she looked down on them with total disdain. At first, she was our best egg layer, but after that first glorious season, she downed tools and became purely decorative! Just over a year ago, she became very poorly with a large swelling on one side of her face that closed her eye on that side and forced her mouth to be permanently open, rendering her unable to feed or drink. A trip to the vet, anti-inflammatories and antibiotics (and a hefty £40 vet bill!!) brought her back from the brink, but this time her age (she was at least six) and the heat finished her off. RIP Mrs Speckles - you will be missed, by me, if not the rest of the flock (now reduced to four hens and one cockerel).

Mrs Speckles, in her younger days - RIP