Nestwatch

Mama (or indeed Papa as I gather they take turns to nest-sit) was away from the nest briefly yesterday and I took the opportunity to have a quick peek:

We're up from the 3 and 4 eggs we first observed in mid-May to 5 - so presuming the information I've found on incubation period is accurate (12-14 days) they should be hatching any time now.

Watch this space!

Springwatch

In homage to BBC's Springwatch, here's our very own selection of wildlife offerings.

Firstly, the baby Sparrows - doing their Feed Me, Feed Me Now thing . . .



. . . much fluffing of feathers, fluttering of wings, and frenzied cheeping . . .






. . . the adult pictured here is evidently gleaning scraps from the fat balls to keep the little ones quiet.






On a more horticultural note, the hedgerows roundabout are studded with these little white stars at the moment - an online search identifies it as Lesser Stitchwort, unless anybody knows any differently?



Finally, we have our very own nesting Pied Wagtails. They have positioned their nest somewhat awkwardly, right behind our log store (so the logs are off limits right now) but seem quite happy despite our comings and goings. No sign of any chicks just yet, but there is some serious nest-sitting going on.

Hopefully more photos to follow:

Done!

The fruit cage that is . . . just hope it doesn't blow away overnight (it's a bit windy here just now!). All being well, the strawberries and blueberry should be safe now from marauding bunnies.

Spring Weather

Haven't weather-blogged for a while, so here we go. March and April really weren't that bad - in fact the end of March brought some nice warm days if I remember rightly, and April was pretty good on the whole as well. Thus far May is actually feeling distinctly colder.

Still having technical problems with the weather-station data - this time I'm missing everything from my last download (17 March) through to 14 April - ah well . . . investigations are ongoing. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Anyway here is the run down, incomplete as it is, on March and April:

MARCH:

APRIL:

Bunny Biscuits

Not so happy with the bunnies these days - they're tucking in to our strawberry plants with gay abandon - a lot of them are more stalk than plant right now. (Which has at least pushed us in to action on the fruit cage front . . . see future post.)

The biscuits I made at the weekend were at least sweet, although they looked so much more like bunnies before they were cooked . . .

Strawberry Fields

Well, not quite fields maybe, but certainly an awful lot of strawberry plants. Set out to transplant from the raised bed we planted last year, with its 6 strawberry plants, into the new fruit plot, either side of the path. Having pulled out around 50 individual plants (plus the 6 we gave away) were running out of room, so left some behind in case any of the transplantees didn't 'take'.

Here they are in their new home - also showing, the raspberry cane support system in all it's glory . . .

Fruits of Our Labours

It's been a beautiful weekend - could have been June rather than April today. The garden is looking lovely, the daffodils have for the most part given way to tulips, and the magnolia is looking absolutely beautiful. Around the lawn there are lots of cowslips and violets as well, and any day now the azaleas will start coming in to bloom.


We were intending to put in another veg plot this weekend, having decided that we wouldn't be doing anything major with the fruit plot (as we thought we'd left it all a bit late to get hold of some raspberry canes.) However, Martin's folks turned up on Saturday with 10 raspberry plants, and sorting out the fruit plot became a matter of urgency.

Martin built the frame for the plot that afternoon, while I moved one of last year's raised beds to make more room. Today we finished de-turfing, levelling, and planting it up - the raspberry canes on one side, and two blackcurrants, two gooseberries, and a blueberry on the other. The 'fruits of our labours' are pictured below, and hopefully in due course we will see some real fruits, although probably not that much this year . . .

We're still in the process of finishing the central path area - this is being filled (gradually) with stones taken out of the various vegetable / fruit plots. Also planning to move the strawberry plants into this plot from their current raised bed. Need to add some stakes for the raspberries as well.

Last year we actually had two apple trees in this area; we moved these a few weeks ago and have started the process of espaliering them. They seem to be coming along ok - at any rate they're about to come into bloom, so hopefully we'll see an apple or two. Bought a desert cherry tree as well, although that's nowhere near flowering just yet.

To end on a flowery note, here's some apple blossom . . .