Nature Chain Winsley

  20 April                    Bee Flowers, ‘Weed’ Carpets   Mid-April - white wild cherries emerge from dappled light on delicate tree shapes. Fresh greens and pinks of young leaves begin to mask the houses, and showers are in the offing.  There will be more cherry flowers here and native trees in young leaf next Spring and beyond... the whips we all planted as part of the village project a couple of years back are now human height, and flourishing first flowers. Plant power is pushing apace. Here,  a Peony pushes up through an old snail shell in the way of upward progress towards the light!   Wildlife Gardening Tips :   Rather than have blank bare soil gaps between the big flower promise to come, I let blanket self seeders get on with it: they make good Winter/early Spring green ground cover and end of March, nectar flowers start opening for early insects (4 -Honey Bee). Right now, Forget-me-not a...

  Easter Nests... and Eggs   Happy Easter! Cherry blossom and young shoots, birds singing in strident competition and displaying about birdfeeders... territories being set up with prime nest sites. Spring is here... more or less, maybe a bit intermittently in between the cold snaps! Birds will  be searching for nest material. Great Tits:   and a nest of a pair of them   The story behind the intrusive photos of their nest is that last Spring, the nest box was on the trunk of a large walnut tree. The parent birds were in and out of the nest and all seemed well until crows and jackdaws descended on the tree to feast on the walnut catkins. Soon after, the Great Tits disappeared, leaving broken and entire eggs... Easter eggs that never hatched. Looking closely, the volume of nesting material, its variety and selection, and the intricacies of transporting by flight and then carefully placing take one’s breath away. The long hairs are probably hair from local horses. T...