My Big Garden Birdwatch

 Those of you who read my post about the birdfeeders in our garden (15/12/21) will not be surprised to learn that the results for our hour of The Big Garden Birdwatch were unspectacular. On Friday I was away. Saturday was too windy. This morning i was otherw1se engaged. So 12.20-1.20 it was.

These were the birds seen. One robin turned up at once and was pleased to get at the scattered mealworms first. It was closely followed by a male blackbird, which preferred the fat sprinkles. We usually get half a dozen sparrows every morning, but this time there were just three. Because of old eyes I use binoculars to check, even at this short distance, and was glad to confirm a dunnock; I do like them a lot, so neat and unassuming. A blue tit made such a brief visit - a quick snatch of a sunflower heart, that I nearly missed it. I did miss something similar, for it came and went before I could get focused; it may have been a coal tit, but I did not enter it in my records.

After 40 minutes a fluffy black and white cat came over the fence. It withdrew before I could get my water-pistol pointed. Had it been a dog I could have pursued the owner, but cats are above the law.

Wood pigeons are regulars with us. During this hour there were three. In fact five minutes after the hour was over there were four - but not listed. I expected two magpies, but only one came. I wonder whether its companion has met with an accident.

And that was it. Not very exciting; but I do enjoy watching even these familiar birds. The Garden Birdwatch is not a competition as to who has the most, or the most exotic, but a scientific survey where accurate data is everything. If I want exotic I can walk less than ten minutes and hope to see dippers, goosanders, grey wagtails and a kingfisher. But the Water of Leith does not, I hope, run through our property even in flood. 

The Pond

 I think that every garden should have some sort of water feature. A wild pond is hard to beat. As soon as we moved into our new house I dug a pond. I shall refer occasionally to the pond at our old house, because I do urge those of you who have space to make a bigger one than I have now. The old one was about 3 metres by four metres. My present one is 1 metre by 1.9 metres.

The Pond

You can see that it is not very ambitious, but I am pleased with it and it adds enormously to the wildlife garden. Here are some photos of it being made. 

Turf cut away.

It's important to get the sides level

I bought too much liner. But better than too little

Not finished, but already in use.

The New Pond

This all happened in 2017. As you can see, it was used at once by birds for bathing. Sparrows, blackbirds and starlings use it quite a lot in the summer.

The plants shown on the diagram were bought that first summer. They were all planted into aquatic compost in the bottom of the pond, not left in pots. They may move around a bit to find the depth they like, and their roots may be a useful habitat for invertebrates. The most important plants are the two oxygenators, Hornwort and Spiked milfoil. The other really important thing is the snails. We brought in a few from a large lake in a park, and there are now dozens. They help keep the water clear of algae by grazing on it every spring.

Pond snails among the Hornwort

One the irritating things about some wildlife garden writers is the way they assure readers that, if only they prepare the right habitat, wildlife will definitely arrive. Well, at our old house (nearer the city centre) a frog was sitting in the pond the day after it was filled - like the sparrows here - and palmate newts soon turned up as well. Apart from anything else they liked eating tadpoles. Here, after two years, there were no signs of any amphibians, so I imported a little frogspawn. It takes two years for frogs to reach breeding age, but in the spring of 2021 this happened.

Frogspawn

Several of the tadpoles eventually emerged as little frogs, so we hope they are the start of a successful population. 

This is January. My plan is that, as the year goes on, I shall be able to show you flowers and invertebrates and frogs. If you have room for a larger pond... Well, at the old house we had a pair of Mallard ducks mating most years (and once for a day some ducklings). We also often had a heron arrive. I once saw it eat three frogs in ten minutes, so I tried to provide a sheltered spot, under chicken wire. We do not have room for a heron here, though last summer one did perch on the garage roof and studied the problem, before deciding that our space was a bit too enclosed for a large bird.

Yesterday I removed dead leaves from the water and my fingers froze. There's a good deal of clearance work to do before the end of February (I am not planning to make a swamp) but I am hoping for slightly warmer water. 

Foxes tonight

 

So far my posts on this wildlife garden blog have been general background, and I have a few more of those planned. But here is an up-to-date item of the sort I hope to get onto later, when things start to move in the spring. But nature won’t wait.

 

Tonight at about 9.30pm I happened to notice that something had switched on the safety light at the back of the house. You know the sort of thing – to deter intruders. I guessed there might be a fox, so I cautiously raised a blind. There was a fine big fox. But then out of the shadows came another, smaller. I was enjoying watching them snuffling at the pond, which is surely frozen, when there emerged from a corner a third, of the smaller size. My guess is that it was a mother and two younger ones. Then the light went out.

 

Urban foxes are common round here – and in many places. Their determined burrowing, and tendency to leave droppings scattered about can make them a nuisance. Their biggest nuisance value in our garden is their appetite for any fruit that happens to be within reach. One took pears off the lower branches a couple of summers ago.

This summer they stripped almost all the plums off our little tree, even breaking down some branches (the tree is very young and growing) in the process.

I am also fairly certain it was a fox that pulled a plant out of the pond, pot and all (I had not yet got round to planting it), presumably searching for grubs. 

About a mile away, on the edge of some woodland, badgers occasionally come into gardens. I would be thrilled to see one, but I think they could be seriously destructive of a town garden if in the mood. I'll settle for foxes. I'll see in the morning if they have made their presence felt.