My Wild-life Garden Chapter 22: January 13th

Everyone in the UK knows this has been a very wet winter so far. We have had to have our roof mended. In the wild-life garden the most obvious result has been to put a goodly amount of water in the pond. After the dry autumn, this is a relief. There is still a good deal of clearing to do, but at least those who use the pond in the breeding season will have somewhere to go.

The pond today

The bird-feeders have become very active. The food of choice seems to be sunflower hearts. What a pity they are also more expensive than some seeds; but I suppose the birds don't know that. We have all the “obvious” small birds including, I'm glad to say House sparrows, Passer domesticus. I was reading very recently that the great decline in their British population is not fully understood, though there are many plausible theories which no doubt contribute to the full picture. As well as food we provide a fair amount of unkempt thicket for shelter; possibly that helps. 

One less obvious bird turned up yesterday in a small flock. These were Siskins, Carduelis spinus. They have come every year since we started feeding Goldfinches, Carduelis carduelis, which are now common and a delight.

The Hazel before coppicing

One of the many pleasure of trying to run a wild-life garden in the middle of town is pretending to be in the country. So I have just coppiced the hazel tree by the compost heap. Coppicing is an ancient method of woodland management that for thousands of years produced timber for basket-weaving, chair-legs, spindles, charcoal-burning and so on. The tree is cut back nearly to ground level roughly every eight years or so. Deciduous plants are not killed by this pruning, and grow again – for centuries. In the Coniston area, where I send a lot of time, many of the old woods are called Somethingorother Coppice. 

The Hazel after coppicing

In the wild-life garden the regular coppicing (this has been the third time) partly keeps an urban tree manageable and partly lets light in to benefit other plants. It also provides a supply of handy garden poles. I hope there will be photos of the flowers in due course.