Nicolette’s Wildlife Garden - Long-tails and Spiders

 

 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 they fly from feeders to the old cherry tree for a quick grab at their natural wild food - stray insects, their larvae and eggs, particularly moths and butterflies. (Oak, birch and maple provide a good supply of insect egg food.) Occasionally they eat berries and also spiders



– creatures which unexpectedly also provide for them in another unlikely way!... see below!


Right now, those visiting our garden fly in a set sequence from cherry tree on to the lilac for more invertebrate food, before flitting to forage along the branches of tall hazel and dogwoods




 before disappearing into the thick yew cover next door. They keep in touch by shrill squeaks as they move between areas of shrub cover which also shelters them from the patrolling, perceptive Sparrowhawk.


Cover is as vital as food to help them survive the winter – Long-tailed Tits roost together at night, packing tightly side-by-side along a horizontal branch of hawthorn



 or other dense shrubs. They often join with other flocks, or even other species... so it’s crucial to leave dense, undisturbed twigs and branches for their protection. So don’t be too thorough in pruning and tidying!



 And what about that unexpected association with spiders?


Even old webs are vital in the intricate web of life!

Many years ago, I held a Long-tail’s nest in my hand. It was brought in by one of my Wildlife Watch children to show the group. It was an exquisite little soft elastic sack with tiny entrance hole near the top. It was made of pieces of grey lichen, strands of moss, all intricately woven with... yes, you‘ve guessed it, that elastic, magical extra-strong strand - the spider’s web (4, 5, 10). So don’t tidy those shreds away either! Drape them on twigs in a bird-frequented place. And most importantly, don’t kill their creators sheltering in a wood pile





; relocate them using an upside-down beaker with a piece of stiff paper held under with spider safely caught within!


And to hear, see and marvel at more unlikely connections in Nature’s wild wide web, come to Wednesday’s joint Nature Chain Event on Rewilding:




Picture Credits: 3 ‘Long-tailed Tits’ (which had been feeding on the alder ‘cones’) by Jan Robertson (Bath Society of Botanical Artists). 1, 2, 4 -12 Nicolette Scourse


..

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Which Bird Feeder? and Swans

Image
Wildlife Garden Tips Which Bird Feeder? and Swans As winter gets colder (and wetter) bird food ‘sharers’ and the ‘wide boys’ get hungrier Attempts to give the little birds a share leads to feeder defences becoming an escalating battle of wits, expense and ingenuity! As a special Christmas gift, I have just indulged myself with two new Red Barn feeders - one for seed and one for fat balls  I felt I deserved it, having for some years improvised with an old broken feeder for balls ... replaced wire access, hung it upside down in order to support balls, clad it in wire netting for extra protection, and battled with bits of bent wire to refill it! The solid base designs (5) will catch dropped food and the sturdily constructed cage simply lifts off for refilling and cleaning. It is quite a lot cheaper than the Squirrel buster design which works on a sliding collar principle – creatures over a certain weight close the access (one can adjust the critical weight). Above shows a Red Barn nut...
Read more

Roses and Wildlife Gardening

Image
  30 June 2025  Roses and Wildlife Gardening Summer, roses, warm scented days ‘... are such stuff as dreams are made on...’ or gardener’s dreams certainly! Carefully placed in grand designs, climbers and ramblers sprawling over cottage gardens, allotment flowers for cutting – roses are the all-time favourites.  Vibrant bright red,  (  ‘Parkdirektor Riggers’),  delicate apple-scented pink  (  ‘Albertine’), profuse bunches of bright pink ( 3 ‘ Dorothy Perkins’) – all gardener’s favourites standing the test of time from 1957, 1921 and early 1900’s. Wildlife Gardening Tips : But are they any good for a wildlife garden? Photo says ‘definitely yes’ – quote White-tailed Bumble Bee! Families of Bluetits would also vote ‘yes’. Frequently I see them working their way steadily along this ‘Dorothy Perkins’ stem and other roses, picking tiny creatures from amongst the leaves... presumably greenfly, as a visiting professional gardener marvelled at the fa...
Read more

RiverFestival

Image
New life emerges > RiverFes The season of new life emerging and in the making! Fresh female Red Mason Bees have emerged from my bee hotels, mated and laid eggs provisioning them with food for next year’s newborns, closing off each ‘nursery’ with a neat door of pollen and mud In a  thicket by the river there are more eggs in waiting - five speckled blue eggs lie cradled in a carefully structured masterpiece of woven stems and dead strands Elsewhere, more eggs have hatched - the still of the water is rippled by a passing family of Canada Geese Between egg and adult, many types of insects pass through several stages: here  a Bush Cricket in miniature clambers laboriously over Veggiemesh. It is extremely miniature... Bush Crickets change form and shed hard outer skins 5-6 times before becoming adults. In another part of the garden, underneath a Hop leaf  an unknown inert creature, somewhere between caterpillar and dormant pupa, is hidden. It will soon emerge with win...
Read more