Here at Beefayre, the early murmurs of spring are whispering, albeit slowly, but the signs are in evidence and the daylight hours are slowly getting longer.
Birds are singing and territories are being claimed ready for the onslaught of the imminent breeding season. We’ve a mistle thrush singing from the ash tree, they are reasonably common but less seen than song thrushes, happily they’ve been breeding here in recent years.
We’ve had some interesting visitors on the feeders, our charm of 25 goldfinches eat their way through 20 kilo’s of sunflower kernels a week! Lovely birds. We also had 2 Siskins here third week of February, no bramblings as yet though, although we did, this time last year. Our great spotted woodpecker started drumming mid February and they’ll hopefully breed in the large ash again. We had a influx of 12 blackbirds, probably from Scandinavia mid February one Sunday morning. Tree creepers are also singing intermittently, and the same day we heard them, we had a reed bunting looking for food. We had 2 visiting last year and it’s my dear hope they’ll breed in the next few years now we’ve created the habitat.
There’s little bee news to report as yet, although 2 of the hives survived the winter, the small hive didn’t as it was too cold for them. The other hives started flying during the third week of February. I saw my first bumble on the 25 February, a buff tailed Queen fresh out of hibernation and looking for a suitable nest site, often a disused mouse hole!
Finally, during the last week of February, we started the last phase of our much needed habitat restoration. Initially, we moved a bank to expose a hidden pond and many trees and we’ve also built another invertebrate pond close by and created new meadow sites. A leak on one of our large ponds was also resolved and today it’s 10 inches deeper, success!
If you’re interested in what we are doing here or you would like some advice on wilding part of your own garden, please get in touch, although I’m creating an article about this shortly.
March will see new aspects of the project unfold, I will keep you updated!
Sharon x
