The Garden Diary 2013

 1 May - If there hadn't been a cold, north north-easterly breeze, today would have been very pleasant, with almost clear skies and a high temperature of 15C.

The monitored nest was visited by just the male Blackbird today, with six appearances on camera between 7.08am and 12.45pm

I have now connected the video feeds from the Swift boxes into a quad image which I will be recording on a daily basis. The arrangement means that I will not be able to capture high quality images from individual boxes unless I capture a live image.

While the nest in SW(le) is not occupied this evening it is being worked on during the day - I saw a Sparrow shuffling very close to the entrance this morning.

Tomorrow afternoon I intend to go up to SW(lo) and take another look at the camera as I think the focusing needs an adjustment.

I've had little opportunity to watch out for Swifts today, and so far I've seen no sign of any. However, I see that some have been seen over Henley on Thames, around 20 miles north of us, so we should see them here in the next day or so.

2 May - Another bright, cloudless morning,

and a good time to compare our Himalayan Birch with the native Birch next door.

While our tree is heavily decorated just with its long, pendulous catkins, the native Birch already has quite well developed leaf canopy in addition to its smaller catkins.

It's a year ago to the day that the Hawthorn started flowering in 2012. This morning (at 7.30am) its flower buds are still tightly closed, but it will be interesting to see if today's sunshine with encourage the first flowers to open.

With the arrival of the Swifts getting closer I hope to set up the Nestbox Diary pages later today, but until that happens I'll continue with my observations here -

 This morning there has been sporadic Sparrow activity in all four Swift boxes, all involving a male, as far as I can tell, with one spending a great deal of time looking out of the entrance to SW(ri) and chirping.

There have been occasional visits to SW(le), also by a male only,

and a couple of times I saw him shuffling on the straw near the entrance.

This morning I took a look at the camera in SW(lo) and having changed the lens the problem is still there. Later today I'm going to check for corrosion in its power connections as the poor image may be down to too low a voltage getting to the camera. The camera produces an image, but it ends up with ghosting on the monitor downstairs with the ghost images slightly displaced to the right.

During the morning there was just one visit to the monitored nest site, by the male Blackbird at 10.24am.

We have had one of our grand-daughters with us for much of the day, out in the garden enjoying the summer-like sunshine, which has also brought out several species of butterflies this afternoon. By 2pm I've seen a Large White, a Holly Blue, and Orange Tip and this Brimstone, the only one that I saw land in the garden.

While the undersides of its wings are a yellowy green, the upper surfaces are bright yellow, indicating that this was a male.

There has also been a female Blackcap about, making several futile attempts to get to the apples, thanks to a little girl having too much fun with water nearby!

 Frustration frustration! I spent far too long this afternoon trying to solve the camera problem in SW(lo). I changed the power supply leads (which did include a couple of corroded connections) and that didn't improve the image, so I changed the camera, and guess what - that made no difference. The ghosting was still there.

In the end, after tracking all the connections in the video feed the trouble turned out to be a 3ft long cable acting as a link behind the video multiplexer. The replacement camera works well, but as it doesn't have a microphone I may clean the original camera and return it to the box tomorrow, time permitting.

The male Blackbird appeared on camera again three times this afternoon. During his final visit, just before 5pm, he shuffled his feet to clear a small area at the back of the site.

3 May - A bright, cloudless day with Farnborough recording 18C, although this afternoon a breeze has picked up (from the south-west) that moderates the temperature somewhat. Despite that it has been a good day to relax after yesterday's numerous trips up and down the ladder - at least all cameras are functioning today!

After yesterday's success with the Brimstone, today I managed to sneak up reasonably close to an Orange-tip that had landed on the only Forget-me-nots in flower so far.

This is a male, identified by the bright orange tips to its fore-wings. You can just see some of that colour showing through the patterned underside of its right-hand hind wing.

Earlier I saw what looked like a Small White flying through the garden, although it's possible it could have been a female orange-tip.

One of the Orange-tip caterpillar's food plants is the Garlic Mustard, and by coincidence, the first of these started flowering today, next to the Comfrey which will provide a food source for various bees right through the summer.

Another coincidence today was what I think is the first time I've seen a pair of Blackcaps arrive together to feed. Sheila and I were having lunch on the veranda when they appeared in the hawthorn, heading for the apples. The male started to feed but they both left once they realised that we were close by.

However, they remained in the garden and a short time later the female came to feed, followed by the male a minute or so after her.

As I write this an hour or so later I see that the male is tucking in once more.

Yesterday I commented on the lack of leaves on our Himalayan Birch. Well, that's all changed today, and not only have the first leaves appeared, by so have the first of the female catkins.

One thing I am reporting a couple of days out of date is the bursting of the leaf buds on our Rowan tree, along with the appearance of numerous inflorescences of flower buds.

Last year we also had lots of flower buds, but poor weather conditions meant that pollination success was poor and we ended up with no berries at the end of the summer. Hopefully the tree will be more successful in 2013.

At about 2.45pm we were indoors when I happened to glance out of the window in time to see what is a rare daytime visitor to the garden  - a fox which had come over the fence behind the Hawthorn and was walking along the path between the ponds.

I grabbed my camera, rushed upstairs and grabbed this picture as it checked out the big pond before heading down to the far end of the garden, before heading back into my neighbour's garden and disappearing once more.

The male Blackbird appeared on camera just three times today (8.50am, 11.12am and 1.17pm). This evening I'm not hearing his usual singing from the conifers.

While I see that some Swifts have now arrived in Yorkshire I'm still waiting to see the first to overfly mybitoftheplanet. In the meantime I did catch a glimpse of one House Martin flying over the Brickfields Country Park at lunchtime.

4 May - A disappointing start to the Bank Holiday weekend. There was light rain on and off for most of the morning, and although that cleared away to give a bright afternoon, a cold and brisk westerly breeze meant that the 15C high felt decidedly colder.

We were out for most of the day so I spent no time in the garden, nor did I do any sky gazing (no Swifts to report on yet), but I do have a bit of encouraging news from the monitored nest site at the bottom of the garden.

Between 5am and 9am the site was visited seven times by 'White Spot', the male Blackbird.

 He next appeared at 9.52am, staying over two minutes this time. Then, two minutes later the female turned up. She stayed for over two minutes, inspecting the site quite thoroughly,

and carrying out a shuffle. This is usually a precursor to nest building, but could have been a test of the suitability of the surface - we shall have to wait and see.

After the female left there was a gap of thirteen minutes before the male arrived once more at 10.09am.

This time he was followed into the site by the female, and left a few seconds later.

The female was still there a minute later when the male returned. This time he remained at the edge of the site, staying just a few seconds before leaving once more.

His partner left half a minute later, and that was the last time either bird appeared on camera today.

Past experience dictates that while today's behaviour is very encouraging I won't be raising my hopes too much as yet. At the very least it is a sign that the female is preparing for a second brood so during the rest of the weekend I will be watching for any sign that the female is gathering nesting material. The big question will be has the male succeeded in selling his partner  this location for her new brood

It also reminds me that I need to set up my old laptop ready for webcam use. Perhaps that task will also be carried out during the weekend.

5 May - A rather cloudy but dry start to the day, with a westerly breeze.

As I write this at 9am there is a female Blackcap at the apples. Just afterwards a fox walked across the far end of the garden having come over the fence from my neighbour's garden. Ten minutes later I spotted it  on a roof before disappearing over the tall fence at the bottom of the garden.  I think it was the same individual that visited yesterday. It looks quite old and it walked with a limp as though it has an injured hind leg, although clearly this did not hinder its ability to climb.

By 9am there had been just two visits to the monitored nest site, although both were by the female - an encouraging sign. However, they were the only visits all day - I'm not sure what to make of that!

During the morning I took a trip to the local garden centre in search of some bits that they didn't have, but the trip wasn't wasted. For once they had a decent display of native wild flowers, and I came away with nineteen potted plants, and I may go back for more during the week once these are planted, hopefully tomorrow.

On the subject of wild flowers, the first of the red flowers of summer came into flower today (not opening fully until nearly 8pm) - a Red Campion.

Once this species gets going it will provide the dominant colour amongst the flowering plants here until well into Autumn.

I almost missed this fungus, hidden as it was under a Stinging Nettle leaf. I may have a go at identifying it tomorrow after I take a look at the gills using a mirror.

And something else to identify is this caterpillar which spent the day resting head down on a Common Rush stem before disappearing between 7-30pm - 8pm.

There was no problem identifying this bird that flew over mybitoftheplanet just after 8pm - The Swifts are back!

At least I counted four flying about, although none were low enough to suggest they were 'our' birds, and tonight the only occupant is the roosting Sparrow in SW(up).

I didn't get the chance to set up the webcam laptop today as our little grandson spent much of the day with us, along with his dad. The poor little boy is playing host to the Chickenpox virus at the moment so is far from his usual lively self. Not even eating is fun, thanks to three spots on his tongue! Still, it didn't prevent him from digging for worms, taking a close look at a woodlouse, and enjoying watching tadpoles swimming in an ice-cream tub.

After dark I spotted this small beetle on a Garlic Mustard leaf. It kept very still when I shone a light on it,

and taking a look from the other side of the plant revealed that it was feeding on the edge of the leaf, creating a very ragged edge as it did so.

This behaviour suggests that it is one of the Leaf Beetles, all of which eat leaves. There are some 250 species in the UK and  I cannot match this one to the small number of examples illustrated in my insect guides.

6 May - The warmest day so far this Spring, with Farnborough recording 20C during the afternoon.

During the first part of the morning I planted eight of the wild flowers that I bought yesterday - Valerian, Red Clover (x2), Sneezewort (x2), Teasel (x2) and Meadow Clary. The remaining plants will have to wait at least a day as we have our grandson with us tonight and all day tomorrow. The rest of the day was spent with the family, enjoying the company of all three grand-children.

 This evening I spotted that the first of the Hedge Parsley plants had come into flower, around a week earlier than in 2012.

These are very small, delicate flowers.

I made a mistake by waiting until today to check the gills of that fungus - I think I was beaten to it by a slug last night!

I didn't see any Swifts today. This evening there was quite a bit of activity in the nest in SW(le) although it was a male that was doing all the work. I have yet to see a female in any of the Swift boxes since turning the cameras on.

Down at the monitored nest site, while there is no nest building as yet it does look increasingly promising. The female was the first to visit, at 8.48am and again two minutes later. At 10.06am the male appeared briefly, with the female arriving just after he left.

At 10.20am the male spent a minute at the back of the site, left, and then returned a minute later. Again, he positioned himself right at the back of the site.

Getting quite agitated, he moved across to his right and launched himself out of view as the female arrived.

She had a quick look around and left, not returning for any more visits today.

On the other hand the male returned once during the afternoon (3.28pm) and then four more times during the evening, between 5pm and 7.15pm.

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