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An individual, of no great importance, who is unable to see the natural world as a place for competition. I catch fish, watch birds, derive immense pleasure from simply looking at butterflies, moths, bumble-bees, etc - without the need for rules! I am Dylan and this is my blog - if my opinions offend? Don't bother logging on again - simple!

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Sunday, 3 May 2020

#BWKm0 - Garden mega and more

06.45 hrs, I'm outside, coffee and kit at the ready. It was a fairly dismal daybreak, if the truth were told, but the still conditions bode well? I don't know how long it was before something clicked in my head! There's a Reed Warbler singing somewhere to the south of the garden. Only snippets of quiet sub-song but, yes, there was definitely a Reed Warbler singing!! Insane, surreal, use whatever words come to mind, this was the reality of my situation. I grabbed the long lens and my binos and went for a walk to the end of Vine Close, thus enabling me to wander along the garden hedgerows back to our bungalow and those to the south. The field margin is a massive swathe of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) and it was within these hidden depths that the bird was secreted.

Taken using the Sigma 170 - 500 mm. The Alexanders form a continuous
boundary to the Vine Close back gardens.
I failed to get a photo, despite the bird ending up singing in the Elder above my aviary, but enjoyed every minute of the experience. By 08.10 hrs it all went quiet and the bird was gone, I suppose? I've got to be grateful that it was a singing male, as I'd never have spotted a silent female amidst the tangled mass of yellow flowered umbelifers!
I've spent the vast majority of today building my "Hedgehog Hilton" and have to admit that I'm rather pleased with the outcome of my labours. Okay, it wouldn't win any prizes in a joinery competition, but I'm hopeful that the garden Hedgehogs won't be so judgemental? Scrap pallet wood and based upon a design shown on the Wildlife Trusts website, it's now positioned at the far end of the garden, just beyond the feeding station.


I had the camera kit to hand whilst engaged in this mammoth building project and managed to grab a series of images when a male (local?) Sparrowhawk drifted over the garden. Yesterday I'd grabbed a nice image of one, of three, Goldfinch at the feeders and carried on playing about with the lenses and captured a rather pleasing shot of a hoverfly - sp.




Saddest of all, I even pointed the lens in the direction of a flower! What has my life become?


58 - Pied Wagtail - a bird flew through my binocular view as I was watching a migrating Common Buzzard yesterday.
59 - Reed Warbler  - a singing male! Ridiculous.
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2 comments:

  1. Ric5 May 2020 at 07:20

    Alas Dyl, all the Hedgehogs in my little patch appear to have gone. I used to get up to four at once a few years back. Since then, foxes a plenty, plus I've had Muntjac deer (my wife took a picture!) and one dawn, a lost looking very small Badger.
    I'd like to see another one of those. Reminds me, I should get one of those spy cams gadgets. No doubt I'll end up with memory cards full of the aforementioned foxes and cats.

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    1. Dylan Wrathall5 May 2020 at 07:40

      When Bev and I moved here in 2000, Hedgehogs were such a pain in the arse that I had to put a ring of wire netting around my moth trap to stop the little sods taking the moths off the outside of my wooden contraption. Back then, our neighbour, Brenda, had removed the flap from her cat-flap in order to allow the animals free movement into her conservatory where she fed them. Looking back, hedgehogs must have been both widespread and numerous purely due to the numbers of road casualties seen around the Thanet roadways. Last year I only remember seeing three "deadgehogs" whilst out driving, a sad reflection of the state of our hedgehog populations it would seem.
      As for the local foxes - still in the pending tray regarding a garden portrait of one of these fabulous animals. Cheers for the comment, as always - stay safe - Dyl

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