Moss already...surely not

Er, yes we do have a small covering of moss at the bottom of our nestbox. The first thing I thought was that it couldn't possibly be moss. We do live in the south but its not even March yet. From the nestbox diaries I have seen, they don't start bringing in nesting material until mid-march to early April. This certainly has worried me, and I am not sure whether the parents will have a chance of bringing up a successful brood. Surely there won't be enough insects to feed the chicks. We'll have to see what happens next.

For some reason, taking still images with the nestbox camera doesn't work particularly well, and the quality of the image below isn't that great. You should still be able to make out the darker plant material on top of the wood shavings. This really surprised me!

Save our bees campaign

Very similar to the worm survey which Jane mentioned on her blog is the "Save the bees campaign". It doesn't involve any mustard or surveys but is helping to save another of our UK species. Apparently, if bee populations carry on declining at the current rate, then it is predicted that they could disappear completely from Britain by 2018. With this fact, you can understand why your help is needed.

I have already registered for the campaign. If you would like to do so, here is the adress for their website. When you register, you will be sent a packet of wildflower seeds, which you will be able to grow in the garden. These will provide the bees with more food, which should in turn, help the UK bee population to start increasing again. The plant seeds will almost certainly go in my wildlife/plant patch. Even if no bees are attracted by it, the plants will look nice anyway!

During "National Science and Engineering Week" (6-15th March) a number of events will be taking place across the UK, and they should bee fantastic! Here they are:

Swarm to Ness at Ness Botanic Gardens, South Wirral
Busy Bees at INTECH Science Centre and Planetarium
Bee My Friend at University of Leicester
Land Managers Event at University of Leicester
Bee Aware Weekend at National Botanic Garden of Wales
Bee Aware - Schools at National Botanic Garden of Wales
Bee Aware at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

If you are interested in any of the above, it is worth visiting the website for more info on dates, etc. Hopefully, some of you will get involved, or register on the website to help save the bees. Surprisingly I saw some sort of Bumblebee in the garden at the weekend. This mild weather must have encouraged it. Some of the wild flowers (which I haven't planted) in our garden have already come out- I just hope there won't be another cold snap!

Both parents visit the box

First visit from both Blue Tit parents has already taken place. The male visits first, followed by the female. The female performs the nesting shuffle several times, which is a good sign. Hopefully they will use this box in the spring.

Small spring southern garden

We popped down to the south coast again this weekend to see my Grandma, and I took the time to have a quick stroll through her small garden. It was full of signs of spring and the sun made it pleasantly warm for a day in mid-february. The birds were out and singing too, which gave me the opportunity to take a few photos. Her garden has some nice features and plants too which are included in the photos below:

The photo montage below shows some of the features that caught my eye in her garden. The arch and bench in front of the ivy bush is my favourite part of the garden. The nestbox has been used before in 2007 by a pair of Blue Tits. I think that the box looks nice on the wall, and the worn wood blends in well. They are nice features as well as functional nest sites! The plant in the bottom right of the picture is one of the many colourful plants already this year. Some very colourful potted plants were also showing signs of spring.

Her garden includes a few bird feeders, which attract small numbers of garden birds. The Great Tits in the photos below are among my favourite. They are already paired up and looked like they were searching for a suitable nest site. The first picture is a male, while the second is of the female - note the thinner black stripe on the female. They were surprisingly tame and let me get pretty close. I also heard Dunnocks, Robins and Blackbirds whilst I was out too, but only actually saw the Dunnock, which was singing its spring heart out on a branch.

A fantastic weekend there as usual, and long may the good weather continue. The next time I visit will be in the easter holidays when I will, hopefully have a good look around Titchfield Haven Nature Reserve. I have seen this reserve from the outside before as you may know from a previous post, but next time I'd love to look around the reserve properly. Unfortunately I have some exams in early March, so I may not post again until after that :-(

All photos taken by me in my Grandma's garden.

Blue Tit removes wood shavings

Something that I have seen on other camera nestbox blogs is where the Blue Tits start frantically removing wood shavings from the bottom of the box, which have been placed there to insulate the box. Its great fun to watch, but I can't help thinking that the wood shavings would help keep the nest warmer?!

I have started to see this kind of behaviour from the Blue Tits visiting our nestbox too. I suppose it could be a sign that they are trying to get the nestbox ready to build a nest. Hopefully, this is the case!



We'll just have to see what happens.

Blue Tit visits again

A Blue Tit entered the camera nestbox again at the start of the month and the visits have been very regular. This is a great sign for the spring ahead, and hopefully the visits will continue.



Video taken in my camera nestbox on 1-02-09

Its not just grass...

...Its Bishop's garden wildlife grass! People quite often stereotypically think that grass is not a particularly interesting feature in the garden, but as a wildlife gardener, I think it is important that we show interest in our green weeds. The photos for this posting were taken just after the snow, which reminds me just how long ago I did my last posting. This is because I have more exams this march and have been concentrating on this.

The day in which I went out to take the photos for this post was beautiful; sunny and relatively warm for the middle of winter. As we as a family aren't particularly good at regularly weeding the garden, we get all sorts of grasses come up. As we are used to these, I thought I would "celebrate" their existance. You may think, "why on earth is Joe so interested in grass". Well, I asked myself this same question earlier, but hopefully this posting should be ok by the end :-)

Ok, first up, as I was looking around the garden, the most obvious form of the green stuff is on our lawns. While we take this for granted, just imagine what our gardens would look like without it. More to the point, just think that almost every garden in the country has some form of grass. Grass is great for animals too-especially if you grow it long. But mammals like Badgers are known for liking lawns (or is this just me?) as long as they are near some form of suitable woodland habitat. Admittedly the lawn in our garden isn't always overgrown... especially with 2 grazing pet rabbits!



In my wildlife patch, there are some more interesting grasses than the one above that are even better for wildlife. The long pale grasses provide great cover for reptiles such as lizards. Again, they are possibly not the most beautiful features in a garden, but they do give it a bit of character. Just think about what you are helping when you leave a space of grass to go a bit overgrown-you will be amazed. An example of this is in the photo below.

With Blue Tits showing great interest in our camera nestbox at the moment, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the importance of moss in gardens. Birds really need this material in order to build their nests. We have some of this in our garden, but because we don't have a particularly damp area in the garden, we don't tend to get much of it. The stuff in the photo below was found near my Dad's veg plot. I think it also looks great in a garden.

By the way, I have seen some more action in our camera nestbox and the videos have been uploaded to my camera nestbox blog, so they are there if you would like to have a look:
Click here for camera nestbox blog

All photos taken in my garden earlier this month.

The Robin has landed

I have recently been putting out live foods for the birds, in the hope that they get used to their location before they get fed to chicks in the nesting season. Well, thats the plan anyway. The Robins have already found the feeding bowl hanging in a shrub near the feeders. They seem to be the only bird eating them though, so I hope the others find them too. There were plenty of other birds visiting yesterday, which I have also included in this posting.

As I post this, our garden is covered in snow. My school has been closed both yesterday and today. I actually took the photos for this post on Sunday. I would have posted this then but I lost my USB camera cable. Luckily I have found it now and can view my pictures properly. I think it is important that we put out bird food - especially fat products out at this time of year to make sure the birds get all the energy they need to survive the cold.

As well as seeing some of the more familiar birds in our garden I am also starting to see some birds return to our garden in this cold weather. The Blackbird, surprisingly hasn't been as frequent as usual over the last couple of months, although they are now visiting our garden all the time. They mostly like the fat products I put out for them, and the one in the picture below is right next to the fat block. I hope to see them more and more in the future.

Some of the people who have commented on my Big Garden Birdwatch have mentioned my sighting of the Song Thrush. I am happy to say that it has returned and I saw it again today. They don't seem to like the bird table as much as the Blackbirds, but seem to pick up fallen seeds from the feeders. They are definitely ground feeding birds and are also turning over leaves to look for insects at the end of our garden.

The Greenfinch returned just in time for the Big Garden Birdwatch too, and has been visiting more frequently recently. I saw 3 of them together on Sunday and the one in the picture below is just one of them. They like the sunflower hearts more than the seed mixes, so I am putting both seeds out at the moment. As soon as the sunflower hearts are gone, they disappear from the garden. The Goldfinches and Chaffinches are visiting frequently as usual. We seem to have a very brightly coloured male chaffinch in the garden at the moment, nearly in its breeding plumage.

I wonder if the Blue Tit in the photo below is the same one which has been visiting our camera nestbox. Looking back at the videos, I must say that they look very similar, especially the colouring. I have another Blue Tit nestbox visit to post about soon. The frequent visits are very promising for the nesting season ahead. I am not sure if both the male and female Blue Tits have visited yet, or if there is only one taking a look around. There certainly hasn't been 2 in the box at the same time yet. I will keep my eyes peeled

All photos taken in my garden on Sunday 1st February