The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Fleecewife on September 19, 2010, 09:17:12 am
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I'm wondering if there is room on here for a wildlife section? Is anyone else interested in wildlife other than as something to kill? We run our smallholding to benefit wildlife - birds, animals, invertebrates, wild bees, plants and so on - and I would be interested in discussions on how to encourage these creatures further.
Anyone else interested?
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i would really like that, as we love all things wildlife, and it would be great, to be able to read others experiences,
just sat here watching the swallows gathering ready to vacate their summer residence.
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Good idea !!!
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I'll tell Dan!
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Thank you Rosemary. Look forward to chatting in our little corner ;D
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That sounds a great idea! I know we feel so so honoured every single year when the swallows come to nest with us..we creep around ducking, trying not to upset mum n dad swallows. We also get quite a lot of birds of prey, kestrels, sparrowhawks and buzzards, so so breathtaking. Have to say, I'm not a bunny lover at the moment tho. Even I fell down a hole whilst long reining!! And yes, it was caught on video! ::)
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the birds of prey are something i love about living in Scotland, the call of a buzzard is amazing, love watching them. and the owls so many owls, its incredible, I'm in awe of everyday, love it
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yes.... I always think of Scotland when the buzzards are calling and wheeling around..
They are a new thing to us down South, successfully reintroduced by RSPB a few years ago and seem to be thriving. Farmers aren't so keen... but I have yet to hear of lambs/piglets/whole sheep or fully grown cows being taken! ;D Dunno about chickens tho?
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not sure if anyone has had probs with there chickens, mine have been ok, not lost any to the buzzards,
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We are on a scheme called Tir Gofal, which aims to help the farmer live in harmony with it s natural environment. We have an SSSI jsut over the way, have porpoises and dolphins visit the mouth of the Teifi, seals are pupped on the gravel beaches below the cliffs on which our top fields sit on, this is also the world famous pembrokeshire coastal path :) It runs through our front yard too :)
I remember Pheasants, woodpeckers, heard a Cuckoo:) , lapwings, lots of birds of prey, hobbies. :)
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were very lucky arnt we, i go down to the beach with the dogs and dolphin watch, there are some amazing things out there if people would just take the time to open there eyes and ears to it
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I love spotting the first black headed gull to get his cap.... sign of spring. :love:
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Good idea. :)
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I envy those of you with dolphins to watch :love:
I think what clinched it for us when we bought this place was the mewing buzzards making it seem so remote (it's not really). We have never had a problem with them taking poultry (so far) but they have dined on Muscovey after the fox killed some young drakes which refused to go to bed. I love it when the young buzzards fledge and make such a noise of 'hey Mum look at me I'm flyyyyying'. We call all our buzzards Aldrin (Buzz Aldrin, astronaut)(we call all our cock pheasants Gilbert - hmm, don't really know why)
We also have sparrow hawks - fantastic to watch them hunt, although I did watch one crash into a tree when it got it wrong. They take little birds off our feeders, but realistically it's just another way of feeding the wild birds........just a different food :o They love our hedgerows and hunt along them weaving in and out, leaving a shock wave behind them as the little birds freeze in horror.
There are also peregrines here occasionally. When we first arrived we were watching a lark doing his thing when suddenly whoosh....the peregrine had got him.
Another bird of prey I used to see but haven't recently was quite small, sitting on the telephone wires - a pair in fact. I thought maybe they were merlins.
We do have owls here too. They set the dogs off at night by sitting in a tree near the house and doing their thing. There are at least two varieties but I'm not totally sure about which, apart from barn owls.
Oh there are kestrels too.
There have been big problems with gamekeepers poisoning birds of prey , especially in the Borders, but at least the police are taking it seriously now.
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i couldnt believe my eyes the first time i saw a dolphin when iwas out walking the dogs(never seen a live one before) it was incredible, not far down the coast from where we are moving to is a colany of seals cant wait to visit them.
so far this summer i have seen buzzards, kestrals, barn owls, long eared owl, osprey, and sparrow hark, they very beautiful, but the buzzards do it for me also, like you said the young calling mum, and mum shouting flying instructions back, spent hours watching and listening.
when we went to view our new house a buzzard flew over the barn and across the house land, and i thought then, thats it this is the house, apparently there is a barn owl family locally,
the owls are very busy at night here at the min, loads of hooting going on.
how lucky are we?????????? :wave:
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"how lucky are we" - very! Where I live, variety of life means seeing a different type of car! ::) Wildlife is the flat stuff on the side of the road :(
I'd love a wildlife section - I'd be asking the dumbest questions, though! ;D
Eve :wave:
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i used to sit and watch a pair of goshawks hunt near ours they are stunning!!! dont have the time to sit around now tho ::)
Theres also a new pair of barn owls to near bye, frightened the living day lights out of me when they shot out when i was riding past!!!
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I would support a wildlife forum, the conservation of native fauna and flora was an important consideration in our Holistic management goals on our farm in Zimbabwe, we managed the farm as much as a game reserve as a commercial farm. Here in Hants, there is a large variety of wildlife on the organic farm where I manage livestock, we have put up owl boxes, and planted thousands of trees, even in the garden I have a small pond for frogs and toads etc, stack the stems from pruning and the Jerusalem artichokes are stacked next to the shed for the hedgehogs, this year a blackbird nested in the stack and raised two chicks, I believe we can all do something to help wildlife, even on a very small scale, and a forum to exchange ideas would help in doing this.
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When we moved to this place nearly eleven years ago, there was only a square patch of rough grass for a garden. There is a stone dyke all round, but the winds here are fierce at times and there was no real shelter in any direction. The nearest trees and bushes are about 200 yards away.
I set about planting mixed hedges with Hawthorn, Laurel, Privet, Ash, Oak, Cotoneaster, Forsythia, Wiegelia, Spirea, Ceanothus and Pyracantha. Since it has become established (it gets minimal trimming), I've added Buddleia davidii, Jasmins, and things like bronze Fennel, Spearmint, a Castor oil plant, and scrambling roses in front of the hedges. All that has been bulked out by sporadic plantings of Honeysuckle, Ivy, Clematis, ornamental grasses, perennial Geraniums, and Curtonus. Oh, and a Gean tree.
Here and there are raised beds against the stone wall, made from the same stone, and these are filled with herbs and other things. An old Belfast sink has Iris and a wee splash of water, and there is rhubarb, and even a few nettles and dandelions in odd corners.
Despite the garden only being about 18 yards square, and the rest made up of bits around the cottage, the amount of wildlife it attracts is phenomenal. The insects which come to feed on the flowers are a great food source for birds and we've had Blue tits, Blackbirds, Dunnock, Great tits, Wrens, and even wood pigeons nesting over the last few years. Many of the shrubs produce berries which feed the birds right on till nearly Christmas, then we supply the bird table. We have a resident toad which lives in the bothy, too.
The Buddleia had five species of butterflies on the flowers, and the mints feed lots of species of hoverfly and bees. At night there are moths. We now have shelter from the winds and sunny corners to enjoy. The garden is well used by my two sons (7 and 3), and the cat, the dog, and odd hens with chicks get the benefits of it as well.
Done gradually, it didn't break the bank. Next year, I'm going to plant soft fruit and create a bigger pond. Then I'll try my hand at some serious veg production.
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AengusOg that all sounds amazing. Isn't it wonderful that all that wildlife appears as if by magic as soon as you create a habitat for it all.
You mention wrens - do you have any this year? We have always had plenty, investigating all the crevices in our dry stane dyke, the stone walls of the house, and living in our giant ivy. Last winter they all appear to have died - there has been a total absence of wrens here this year apart from a single bird which stopped here for a couple of days, presumably transiting somewhere else. We had hoped that they would spread up from the south, but nothing.
Has the same thing happened in the rest of Britain or is it just that we are particularly harsh up here on our Scottish hilltop?
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We had one wren poking about in the ivy last week, and that's been it this year. A robin appeared today.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, we have had a pair of French partridges and a cock pheasant visiting regularly in the last couple of winters to feed below the bird table, which is about twenty feet from the kitchen door.
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We have a pair of collar neck doves in the conifers above the chooks: They've hatch some young? we had eggs falling from the nest early september, but you can here the little ones now. Bit late in the year isn't it? and their still going at it in the sunshine this afternoon.
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well the first day of winter and its glorious up near buckie, blue sky all the way, and saw the most amazing thing this morning, sat in the conservatory having a brew looked up and there was a roe deer looking at me over the garden fence, what a lovely sight to start the day with
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Hello Faith - that's lovely :) I was woken by the buzzards having a screaming session which was OK but I would rather have stayed asleep. It's glorious here too in S Lanarkshire - time to tackle the weedy flower garden.
Predictions for this winters weather all seem to be dire, based on sunspot activity, so bad news for the little birds again. Hope they're wrong.
I envy you your conservatory.........
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hi fleecewife,
i am starting to attract birds into the back garden, there didnt seem to be any when we moved in only mr robin, i have been putting fat balls out and of cause the hen food, we have seen little wrens, mr and mrs robin, black birds, sparrows, up to now.
never had a conservatory before, it is very nice, i call it my smoking parlour and office, we can see the sea its incredible, i keep taking the dogs down for walks on the coast as i can watch seals (never seen them in the wild before)
im in my element here, love it
i will get a stock of fatballs in for the birds and any access oil or fat we have i will make some homemade ones also, fingers crossed they have the winter forecast wrong :wave:
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we have just had a flock of swans fly over the house there must of been twenty of them, what a lovely sight, and the sound was incredible. and yesterday just by the side of the house were mr and mrs deer so hopefully we will have babies next spring.
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Lovely :) We haven't seen any swans yet this year but have you seen how fast they fly? I don't know the actual speed, but it seems to be faster than a car :o
We now have huge squadrons of geese coming over and sometimes landing in the fields around us for the night. Wonderful noise. I keep meaning to get out the binoculars to see what type they are. Some are definitely bigger than others, but that's all I can see.
The woodpeckers have now come back to the bird feeders, and a flock of gold finches - very pretty but they squabble a lot. Still not a single wren this year.
It occured to me that we now get a dawn chorus, whereas when we first moved here 15 years ago, with no trees or hedgerows, there was no birdsong, just the mew of Buzzards. What a difference the hedges have made - now the leaves are falling, we can see all the different types of nests.
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hi fleecewife, i have just done a bit of googling and found this on swans, its incredible for such big birds.
"Swans migrate in winter, in flocks of twenty to forty birds. The cygnets travel in their parent’s flock for at least a year, in order to learn the route, where to feed, rest, etc. They have been clocked between 35-50 mph in the air, and prefer to fly at night. They can fly at heights of 28,000 feet, and travel over 2,000 miles, often over sea."
We saw another flock of them last night this time about 15 of them, and there are hundreds and hundreds of geese coming your way are skies are busier than heathrow with them, i always salute them and wish them a safe journey( a bit mad me!!!!)
I have never seen a wild woodpecker, your very lucky they are very attractive birds.
We found a family or sparrows at teatime last night going into the gaps inbetween the tin sheets and the wood roof on the barn to roost, so definately nest boxes going up in that area as soon as possible.
I can see snow on the hills over helmdales way this morning, more to come tonight apparently.
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We had a mix of heavy wet rain with vicious hail in it yesterday, when we had to be working outside with soggy sheep - soaked through.
That is amazing about swans - what a speed, and with a tail wind that would seem even faster from the ground. I am glad they are protected - I hate to think of the geese coming all that way on their amazing journey only to get brought down by waiting guns when they finally reach land. I used to dislike swans, having been attacked by them when I was younger, but of course they are only protecting their families. Now I think they are amazing, and beautiful
The woodpeckers are fun. We have a feeder right outside our window which they come to. Last year the female brought her two young to teach them how to negotiate a feeder - lovely to watch. They hang on there for ages and won't let the other birds feed, but we have at least a dozen feeders for the other birds to choose from.
Sparrows seem to be suffering. They are blaming car exhaust, but surely that would affect all birds? Having watched huge flocks of them living on spilled grain on the farm when I was a child, I feel it may well be different agricultural practices, where there is little spilled grain, plus the greater obsession with having no insects on our garden plants, so they have not enough caterpillars etc to feed their young. They get planty round here and our little flock was about 30 this year. Haven't seen them for a couple of weeks but I'm sure they are about.
Another worrying thing is that so many garden birds die each year from viruses caught from the feeders, and from mouldy feed - time to scrub out the feeders I think.
It's a glorious day here for a change.
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The sky is full of geese, there are hundreds and hundreds of them flying over, it has been like this for the last 3 days, its amazing, watching them and the noise is fantastic, does this mean spring is on its way?? i hope so :wave:
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That must be an amazing sight :) We haven't seen anything like the usual numbers of geese here this winter, presumably because for so long all was frozen solid and under a foot or so of snow. I wonder if the geese were able to get to the SW coast. Maybe your geese will come our way - I'll let you know.
(btw the ground is unfrozen now so it's possible for me to dig up the comfrey......) The sun is shining here but I don't believe it means spring is coming, or not for a few months anyway - it's just a lovely interlude to help us carry on. :wave:
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Hiya Fleecewife, the geese were flying east coast direction, it was so lovely to see, they all went the opposite diections october, november time now they are all flying back, jack frost was out here last night were have white grass and crispy mud today, the sky is blue but there is a very nippy wind :wave:
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of course encouraging wildlife into your garden/veggy patch means you need to use no chemicals because pests are eaten.
i have done wildlife gardening courses and have plans for houses for bugs birds and small mammals if anyone wants copies il email them over.
[must dig them out so be patieant with me. please] :)
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Here in France we are getting skeins of cranes flying over. I love the sound they make and it's one of the first signs winter is starting to release it's grip. In the UK the wildfowl place at Slimbridge spent a small fortune trying to re-introduce Cranes to the UK they haven't been there for a few hundred years. They where about to release some when a small group appeared in Suffolk on their own ha ha I bet they were p**sed off. This is a sign nature looks after itself if people stop interfering.
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Four Roe deer grazing outside this afternoon, just before dusk.
I think my sheep are too generous about sharing!
John