Nature Chain Winsley

Right Planting Place Blossom and buzzing – bright Japonicas lift the heart on cloudy days and peach blossom brings promise of summer fruits... with the collaboration of busy Buff-tailed Bumblebees. In shadier places the quieter, less flamboyant flowers of woodlands emerge and open in the sunlight.  The sunny window of opportunity for growth, flowering and pollination of ground dwelling plants is short in wild woods. Leaf buds swell and open on tall dominant trees and the woodland leaf canopy closes over like a dark summer umbrella.  Here  wild Windflowers (Wood Anemones) flourish with Celandines and Violets. They all just appeared from elsewhere in the garden and established themselves here behind a Moss Rose (which right now is a bunch of thorny sticks filtering morning dappled sun before the house creates shade). Plants flourish in their own individually chosen places! These particular Windflowers  have a history... they were collected from the wild before World ...

  March 17 Facebook 2025 Big, noisy fliers were among the first insect arrivals buzzing about the Cherry Plum and garden shrubs and flowers, feeding voraciously - Queen Buff-tailed Bumble Bees, just emerged from hibernation. They are ravenous, having used up their food reserves to survive  the winter. Right now, they are also feeding on garden shrubs e.g. last of the Mahonia, Viburnum, and here Daphne .   They are feeding on ground cover flowers too – Bergenia (Elephant’s Ears) Photos  Photo 2 shows insect segmented leg structure well against pink petals, 3 shows leg tip ‘claw’ details and distinctive tail colour. Wildlife Gardening Tip: Hunger satisfied these big Bumbles will then be looking for ground nesting sites, often in old mouse nests. In the absence of these, apparently mouse-type nesting material left in crevices can encourage and help them. In there, they build the colony structure with their own wax and lay their eggs. In spring, the workers emerge...

  10th March  At last! Early morning sun sculpts tree branches, spattering dark ivy shines with leaves of white glitter, moss turns lush green... and the early buds of wild Cherry Plum burst into a froth of white petal confetti. Welcome hope of Spring warmth for us chilly humans, but for wildlife, these are vital winter havens ,  now presenting yet more opportunities! small ivy sprays and climbing, creeping stems offer sheltering crevices to the small. Moss clothing bark protects the minute and microscopic, as do the lichen and young Ivy-leaved Toadflax clinging to the old wall below. Whole worlds lie within, hidden in plain sight... unless you happen to be carrying a powerful magnifier! The delicate Cherry Plum flowers  offer food bounty, obvious at a glance. Here a Peacock Butterfly warms itself, newly awake from its winter shelter in a dark crevice or a shed. It looks as if it had a lucky escape last season – note the chunk out of its right hind wing, possibly a ...

  Blog 9 6 am... dark tree top shapes against an opaque pale dawn sky... silence but for a long rise and fall of sound, “Oohoo”. Another, fainter comes from the wood across the valley... they combine their sounds, closer and more distant answers come from down by the river.  It had been appropriate that during this clear night of the seven dazzling bright planets they had been calling to each other loud and clear – tawny owls. The fabulous photo, taken by Chris Wardell, was probably one of the owls answering in the distance, way down along the river towards Bradford. The Tawny Owl’s hearing is ten times better than a human’s. Enjoy this image by day – the wonder of every feather’s camouflage pattern (and its texture assisting silent flight), the fulsome “eyebrow” feathers and the mouth definition around that fearsome death-delivering beak. Combined with asymmetrically placed ears giving good directional hearing, plus excellent night vision by virtue of low-light sensitivity...