Nature Chain Winsley

   PONDS After all that festive food it’s time to get fit! Gym?... maybe, but enclosed in four walls; sounds of turning wheels; cost; aroma – human effort! Jogging?... open air; probably sounds of turning wheels of traffic; aroma – car fumes! Digging? Sounds of birds, aroma - fresh air, maybe pine needles, scented leaves and flowers! Dig what? A pond! Tiny, sink size   or big  – children’s pond dipping at Langford Lakes (Wilts Wildlife Trust).  The beautiful flowers ( 2 ) edging this pond are Purple Loosestrife. On the same colour theme and thriving on wet soil is Great Willowherb  – a winner, it seeds and grows easily. Earlier in the year, a splash of sunny yellow comes from Marsh Marigold, also known by the delightful country names Mollyblobs and Kingcups  It does well whether planted, or in a submerged pot. Dig a pond and give joy to multitudes!  Once you have dug the hole, what do you do then?... *COME to NATURE CHAIN’S 15 January 2...

  Ivy, honey, holly!  Will it be a White Christmas? Or pouring rain, dull grey sky? No visual buzz from the last two, BUT... go outside for a few minutes... listen... tiny squeaks back and forth... a family of blue tits flitting amongst twigs , or maybe a flock of Long-tailed Tits, or a robin’s quiet murmuring out of sight in the bushes – subsong, practice, rehearsal or ‘whisper song’...A joyous sound of life! Look up and there could be a Buzzard floating on the air, blunt wings stretched out wide. Or maybe, an occasional, more recent sky acrobat, a Red Kite.  This bird’s flight control is phenomenal, a true arial display of manoeuvrability, turning wing angles and direction, twisting one side or both forks of the tail in a flash this way and that. An inspiration of freedom up in the sky! And Kites are crucial in nature’s great ‘clean-up crew’, feeding on dead animals (e.g. roadkill) and general waste – historically valued to the point of being legally protected by ...

  Predator avoidance, bird feeding Wetter, windier, colder... time to protect your birds. There’s more to it than feeders! (see last week). As well as the thieving ‘wide boys’ keen to gorge themselves on the bird food, there are the natural predators of the birds themselves No apologies for an artist’s rendering – their breakneck speed and unexpected appearance makes them a professional’s photographic challenge - not for amateurs with a mobile! In less than the blink of an eye I have seen a Sparrowhawk - pictured above, zooming to and through a gap, successfully grasping a feeding bird as it flew. Then there are the foxes - I assume that is what ate the pigeon Much more dangerous are the unnatural predators – sadly, our cuddly cats do not fit into our natural ecology  our kitten – who grew up to be a creature of character!. With a natural predator, the size of the population drops when prey numbers drop – in the domestic scenario things are different. The pet cat’s toll o...

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...

  Wildlife Garden - Wrens, Insects Acrobatic little brown bird  The field is wide... what is it? Even more vertical acrobatics  – impressive. It flits at lightning speed... tiny thin beak, pale eye stripe, dumpy little body and a pert sticking-out tail... it can only be a wren! The myth of ‘just another little brown bird’ evaporates when one looks at feather detail caught by the discerning lines of a coloured pencil portrait  But what’s this tiny bird doing, using up energy in cold weather leaping and fluttering upwards? Every day it follows the same routine of visiting specific places, like last week’s Long-tailed Tits. Wildlife Gardening Tips: 4 - Wren pecking amongst wet pebbles  mosses and Mind-your-own-business. Then to some ancient, contorted driftwood roots picked up on a beach long ago...  Now it’s into thick sheltering  evergreens - ivy and thick Juniper where it spends time, deep under and over the top. Its thin pointed beak comes into foc...