As a keen fly fisherman, i would often fish into the dark, as you often had a hatch of real flies at twilight. Bats would often take the artificial fly in mid cast. Unhooking a bat in the dark was interesting.
Up until about ten years ago my favourite local walk took me along a seldom-used and rather boggy track that wound up through a plantation of towering larch trees. It's hard to find such quiet and secluded places around here but that wood was about as good as it got and I quite often had some good nature encounters up there. Then the larch blight reached us and NRW bulldozed a road into the middle of the trees, dug ditches to drain all the boggy ground and clear-felled the lot to try and prevent the disease from spreading.
For several years after that I took to walking elsewhere to avoid what was then left as a barren landscape littered with the bones of dead trees. The new road attracted more people to walk up there and made a good racetrack for kids on scramblers.
It was always bitter-sweet though as the woodland was being allowed to regrow naturally and it was only a matter of time before it became a diverse mix of trees. It's been interesting to watch the various stages of regrowth and now the first pioneer trees are reaching four or five metres in height, creating dense thickets between the brambles and willowherbs. The road is slowly disappearing again as the plants encroach from the sides and tough species push through the compacted gravel surface.
Last night was one of those still, mild evenings that always encourages me to explore and walk further than I'd planned. I ended up standing up on the woodland path between a thick stand of young larch and a scattering of broad-leaved saplings with the leaves of a willow just brushing my shoulders when I heard the contact calls of a flock of birds approaching. I stood still, with the dog at my feet, as a flock of about thirty birds came picking through the trees just above head height. Blue Tits, Great Tits and Coal Tits all passed by close enough to touch, then a group of Gold Crests followed behind, picking through the willow tree so closely that I could see the yellow stripe on their heads. A family of Long-Tailed Tits joined the Gold Crests with one coming so close that its high-pitched peeping calls were loud enough to hurt my ears. I could follow their passage through the trees by the constant calling and as it died off into the distance they left behind a small group of siskins picking through the birch trees for seeds. I still miss the old woods but I think I'll be walking that way more often again now.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
It's exciting to hear from UK earth worm specialists that worms are very unrecorded here, so if you explore in your garden you may well find a species new to the records.
We feed our visiting hedgehogs in a low ‘cave’ made of bricks topped with a paving slab … it deters the neighbourhood cats as the font like having to crawl in on their bellies and have to reverse out again. We access the dish at the far end of the cave by removing the brick at the back.
Last night it was already dark when I realised we’d not put fresh biscuits out … I removed the back brick, felt for the dish and pulled it towards me … it felt heavier than usual … because there, sound asleep and snoring gently, was a hefty hedgehog … obviously so fed up with waiting for his supper he’d nodded off 😂
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Not a great picture as I only had my phone but it's lovely seeing Red Kites in the south east on a fairly regular basis, beautiful raptors 😊 .It was a beautiful early autumn morning here today.
Last weekend I heard something scratching under the decking and trying to dig its way into the garden. I shone a torch under there and saw a hedgehog looking back at me. I know the hedgehogs can get into the garden but I decided to do some access improvement measures this week to make life easy for them.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
We too were caught out by the nights drawing in @Dovefromabove It was 9pm and hubby went out to feed, lifted the lid and hoggie was sat there waiting! Hubby poured in the hog biscuits, and replaced the lid, at which hog just started eating.😆
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Bdooly autocorrect rides again 🐎
@Simone_in_Wiltshire … those apocryphal tales have been put about for generations by folk who know no better … best ignored 😉
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It was 9pm and hubby went out to feed, lifted the lid and hoggie was sat there waiting! Hubby poured in the hog biscuits, and replaced the lid, at which hog just started eating.😆
Interesting to see the contents of the birds Crop / Stomach.