Scrambled ..
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
13h ago
Day 280 #365DaysWild Native primrose - primula vulgaris - is now beginning its best time. Surely the prettiest of our native flowers..? These are self-sown seedlings are a scrambled-egg delight for onlookers and for invertebrates too. Once fertilised, the flowers will produce tiny round sticky seeds which we hope will germinate and add even more of these lovely flowers to the springtime Birch Border ..read more
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Tiny tawny
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
2d ago
Day 279 #365DaysWild Tiny volcanic eruptions where vegetation is thinnest. Tawny mining bees have emerged and are excavating their tunnels.  These are solitary bees and not in hives. The males serve their function early in the season and die , leaving the fertilised females to dig their tunnels and provision the eggs with pollen. We have a self-set flowering currant that is in full bloom at the moment. Currants are one of the flowers the tawny mining bees visit. Little amber gems ..read more
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Red-legged
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
3d ago
Day 278 #365DaysWild Who doesn’t like visitors? We’re enjoying breakfast and coffee.  Turning it over. Usual wrestling with the calendar. And uninvited guests arrive - a pair of red-legged partridge. Nosey. Looking through the lounge windows. Prettily-patterned charmers. Our native partridge is the grey partridge - another farm bird in calamitous decline. Our red-legged visitors are prospecting around the garden as their kind always does in spring. Part of the annual, unregulated release of millions of game birds by landowners for shooting. Not native. Sometimes termed ..read more
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Snakeshead celebration ..
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
4d ago
Day 277 #365DaysWild Snakeshead fritillaries  Snakeshead refers to the bent necks of the flower buds on the stems stems, like a snake about to strike. Fritillary means chequered. The boffins disagree over whether it is naturalised or native. ‘Who cares?’ I say. It is utterly exotic and unlike any other garden flower. We planted bulbs of Snakeshead fritillaries around the pond edge. In their first year they flourished - but the increased rainfall has raised the pond level and flooded the bulbs, possibly rotting them. However, in the meadow, fritillaries have appeared on their ow ..read more
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Heron
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
5d ago
Day 276 #365DaysWild For several weeks I’ve been sleuthing. Two years ago George’s Pond was croaking with frogs and their spawn. But last year we had no spawn. And this year we have had a few frogs but no spawn. I’ve found ‘star jelly’ (the unfertilised spawn) in the grass by the pond and I’ve found spawn on the grass. But none in the pond. This morning another suspect strode in. This one slender and elegant. A grey heron ..read more
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Mallards
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
5d ago
Day 274 #365DaysWild Mallards. Another bird of conservation concern. But plentiful here. I disturbed five drakes on the pond this morning. Population possibly supplemented by birds released for shooting. The missing females must by now have begun nesting and egg-laying. They never, as far as we can see, bring ducklings to adulthood. Foxes, badgers, stoats, carrion crows, birds of prey and magpies all predate the eggs or the young. The unregulated release of fifty five million gamebirds each year increases the numbers of predators which in turn puts downward pressure on the breeding ch ..read more
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Frampton Marsh
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
6d ago
Day 274 #365DaysWild Amongst the dark clouds of biodiversity loss there remain shining lights. Over to the corner of Lincolnshire to the RSPB Frampton Marsh reserve. To get there you travel through a barren landscape of glyphosated fields. Intensification of farming is a key factor in the current wildlife crisis that has been termed ‘the sixth mass extinction’ by the WWF. A local intensive poultry unit cast an olfactory shadow over us throughout our visit.  There, beneath towering skies, using vision, creativity and imagination, the RSPB has created the kind of place so packed with b ..read more
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Pearly gates …
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
1w ago
Day 273 #365DaysWild If St. Peter let’s me through those pearly gates, he’ll lead me into a place very like the walled vegetable garden at National Trust Felbrigg for an eternity of gardening with scratching bantams and white fantail pigeons.. I just hope I can explain to the BIg Guy that I won’t be cutting the grass so close ..read more
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Splendid fungus
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
1w ago
Day 272 #365DaysWild Splendid fungus fruiting beneath sycamore in an area enriched with bark chippings. Ann suggests it is a member of the Psathyrella group but it requires microscope work to identify to species. Research suggests that these are widespread but not necessarily common. The mycelia of fungi interact with the roots of plants in  what is sometimes called ‘the wood-wide web’. The relationship between plants and their fungal partners isn’t fully understood but is generally mutually-beneficial - saprophites. When fruiting, as these are, they can release many t ..read more
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Catch ‘em young!
Sustainable Garden
by Rob
1w ago
Day 271 #365DaysWild Catch ‘em young! My favourite little boy went around the garden with me in the rain using the Merlin app, identifying bird calls and songs. ‘What’s that one calling Poppa?’ He asked. I couldn’t hear it. Roy Dennis remarked on the sad loss of the ability to hear bird song as he aged.. These days I struggle to hear redwings flying overhead. And treecreepers. Before I could answer, up popped ‘Goldcrest’ on the app. That’s another whose frequency is too high for me to register. At home, our boy used daddy’s phone to ID garden birds and he sent me a list ..read more
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