Nature Chain Winsley

   Nicolette’s Wildlife Garden - Long-tails and Spiders High pitched squeaks shift across the garden... calling, answering, staying together, security in numbers, foraging as a team.... the little flock of Long-tails have arrived on their daily mission, or to be more exact, one of their two or three. They fly from fat slab, to seedy suet balls – , which gives a chance to close-up on their subtle pinkish-beige feathers contrasting with chic black and touches of white. Usually there is just the definitive long tail announcing their presence at the feeder  but best detail can be seen through the eyes of an artist with acute observation and accuracy  Wildlife Gardening Tips: Suet balls ( 1 ) are highly beneficial - essential fat and energy. The birds move on to peanuts – a favourite, and on to sunflower hearts (high-energy food), all providing the energy vital for such a small creature to survive the cold nights which have now arrived. They dip and swoop as the...

  Nicolette’s Wildlife Garden - here is the bonus of the insect benefactors... berries for the birds! Ivy by courtesy of hungry Red Admiral Butterfly (and others – Ivy Bee, wasps, bumblebees, honeybees...). Bullfinches  like many birds, vary their diet through the seasons, switching to berries at this time of year - hawthorn, elder, rowan. They are elusive birds, appearing sometimes at winter seed feeders, difficult to photograph... a carefully observed artwork shows the beautiful subtleties of their colours much better! The strong bulky beak is well adapted for seed and fruit eating. Colourful berries are easily spotted by birds... and cheer the winter garden! Here – Callicarpa , wild Honeysuckle , wild Stinking Iris (Iris Foetidissima and Mahonia . Male Blackbird – caught in the act, berry firmly held in beak! All are ideal bushes and climbers for a wildlife-oriented garden. More sharing... good for people and birds - hips of wild roses, and bush roses  are pack...

  Nicolette’s Wildlife Garden - Autumn flowers for insects...   A Bumble bee meticulously drains nectar from every bloom on a spike of autumn flowering monkshood Aconitum napellus  (A. carmichaelii is a rich purple alternative). Complementary colours of Pot Marigolds still give humans a buzz, and flies   much needed food. Every day, honeybees home in on another faithful supplier, Salvia ‘Amistad’  which continues giving from early summer to first frost. And the various yellows to pinks of the Alstroemeria flowers  are also in that autumn insect ‘must-have’ category. The more flower variety one can achieve in the cold and wet of autumn and winter the better the survival chances for garden pollinators and pest controllers – insects, spiders, and birds. A quote from Royal Botanic Gardens Kew: ‘ Pollination occurs when pollen is transferred from flower to flower by animals such as bird, bees, bats, butterflies, beetles and moths. By encouraging th...

  N icolette’s Wildlife Garden – Sharing : In gardens autumn colours  have arrived, summer colours linger  and even grow at the gallop   Wildlife is seriously stocking up bounty for winter with increasing urgency. Back in September, squirrels audibly reminded  me to pick what hazel nuts I could ... by their trails of remnant husks and shells scrunching underfoot . They have been squabbling loudly up the trees around the valley ever since. Winsley squirrels are, of course, wild but not native – foreigners from N America. Our native red squirrels now only thrive in isolated sanctuaries  Considering planting nut trees?   This cultivated red hazel variety, Purple Filbert (Corylus maxima ‘Purpurea’) with shining crimson foliage has bigger nuts, fewer dud empty ones than the wild... and squirrels prefer them too! I say nut tree s as it takes two, they are self-sterile... but a free wild one in the vicinity does the job well as they produce large amo...