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March 12th: Welcome to 2009
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| I have started this diary quite late compared to previous years. If there is any interest I might continue it.
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| NestBox News
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| The BlueTit nestbox this year remains completely unchanged, no new cameras or electronic devices. In other words "if it works don't fix it". (can't afford new cameras anyway...).
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 | So far there has been a pair visiting the box infrequently since the big snow we had in February. The male has a very distinctive white spot in the middle of his blue cap.
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| I have made a Robin box and hidden it deep inside a shrub.
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| A roosting pouch has a little bit of nesting material inside it, made by a male Wren for later inspection by a female. The males make several preliminary nests and the female chooses one.
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 | I have also made a wooden nestbox with a bespoke entrance hole, placed under the eaves of the house about 3m away from the bluetit box; I hope it will attract our resident Pied Wagtails to nest in there this year. If they do I will be tempted to use a camera in it next year. The size of the entrance hole has been carefully deliberated to exclude Starlings, using American research and some area based cross-sectional calculations of my own.
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| Garden News
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| There have been big changes to our garden this year, in order to try and make it more bird and wildlife friendly. And most importantly to deter CATS, those non-native Vermin that are responsible for killing millions of wildlife. They are legally allowed to visit others gardens, hunt and kill birds for the FUN of it, seek out nests and kill the chicks, pawing frogs and toads killing them or leaving them to die from infected lacerations. The Law needs to change to make it a legal requirement that if you have cats, you must have an escape-proof garden. Cat owners need to start having legal responsibility for their cats' actions, just as dog owners have legal responsibility for their dogs.
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 | At the moment the garden looks in a bit of a sorry state as several large and established shrubs have been removed, either because they were in a bad condition, not wildlife friendly, or growing in the wrong place. However many young plants have been added but it will take 3 or 4 years for them to grow to a reasonable size.
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| - a native yellow winter Jasmine has been pulled up - it was not self supporting and was bringing down the fence;
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| - a native Honeysuckle was cut down and removed - this was totally infested with aphids every year, which made it a horrible mess; Never saw any birds eating them. There were a few ladybirds but not enough to hold back the billions of overwhelming aphids;
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| - a non-native Honeysuckle which never got aphids was heavily cut back to a few feet as it got too woody, and together with an Ivy they both managed to destroy the metal arch they were climbing up, hence the need to cut them right back for the time being;
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| - the same also for a Clematis, which I might remove as I'm not sure it has much appeal to wildlife;
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| - a Blackberry bush - produced lots of fruit but never saw any birds eating them;
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| New plants:
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| - Hawthorn/Quickthorn (x4) - fast growing, self supporting, prickly, grows tall but easily pruned to grow bushy;
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| - Rugosa Rose (x2) - prickly, grows low and bushy, no maintenance required;
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| - Scotch Rose (x2) - as above, but grows slightly taller;
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| - Dog Rose (x2) - as above, but requires pruning to bush out and limit height; very attractive to insects and the fruit attractive to birds; bushiness should also appeal as a nesting site;
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| - Elder (x1)
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| - Hazel (x1)
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| - Black Locust (x1) - tall and prickly, to deter neighbours;
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 | Hornbeam (x5) - planted together with Box (x5) to grow a hedge for use as a nesting site; The cable supplies power to the shed/workshop.
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 | Cotoneaster (x5) - planted together to form a hedge to mask the shed and also hopefully be used as a nesting site; BTW - those cables are video and power for outdoor wildlife cameras (usually hedgehogs).
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| It's going to take a few years before any of these newly planted shrubs are a decent enough size and it will be interesting to watch them progress;
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 | The Pond is having a bit of a makeover too, all the marginal plants have been removed as they were hogging all the air space above the pond, we found these were deterring the Dragonflies and Damselflies from visiting as well as blocking the view for ourselves. Instead we are going to plant low growing Marginals, as many native ones as we can find. No frogspawn as yet, so far only 4 frogs have been seen, 1 pair of those in amplexus.
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