A moth named after not one but two birds

The Hummingbird Hawk-Moth. I've only seen these twice before, but the same day that I read they are popping up in many a garden this year and what should happen?

I first noticed it hovering around a verbena bonariensis plant in the forest garden, but ti quickly turned its attention to a flowering buddleia. In fact I had plenty of time to phone Sue and drag in the house to come and see it. Occasionally it darted off, presumably to another feed plant, but it kept coming back to these same few flowers.

It was impossible to get a picture with my phone. The things never stop moving and even if it did pause long enough, the wings just make the whole thing a blur. So I decided to pick one flower and wait to see if I could shoot a bit of video. Actual views were much better, but hopefully the video I've attached: 1 - works and 2 - gives a good general impression of our visit.

So if you've any suitable flowers in your garden, workplace, local park, wherever, then do keep an eye open and you might just be lucky enough to meet one of these little fellas.

 

Garlic and 'snips

Just a quick update on a couple of bits 'n' pieces.

Garlic and Parsnips
Firstly, as you can see. my garlic is doing pretty well this year. It will be out of the ground in early summer though, so in between I've sown rows of parsnip seed. I don't find a need to do this as early as some advise. Mid to late April is fine and I've always had sizeable parsnip tubers by the winter.

Until recently I allowed plenty of parsnip plants to go into a second year and flower. They are wonderfully statuesque plants and beneficial insects make a beeline for their flowers. The seed I collect from them produces next year's plants.

I will confess to having parsnips springing up everywhere! But I am having to put a curb on my parsnips. They are high up the suspect list for causing some rather nasty blisters which react badly for several years when exposed to sunlight. 

I can still grow them, but will only allow one or two plants, away from paths, to flower.

Adapting to a changing climate

We've had our third very dry April in a row. I'm beginning to adapt to this clear pattern of climate change by raising my seedlings slightly later as it's difficult to get them planted and established in dry conditions. Frosts have been few and far between this winter too and none have been harsh. My Chilean Glory Vine bears witness to this. It's not supposed to be hardy in this region, but mine has happily survived the winter.

As we head towards frost-freedom, the garden is springing to life. Below is my Snowy Mespilus hedge which always looks beautiful for a few short weeks in the springtime. 

And can you spot who photobombed this photo of red dead-nettle. One of my favourite wild plants alongside one of my favourite insects, the bee-fly.

Avian delights

Every year we look forward to the swallows returning to the farm. As April progresses the anticipation rises, until one day, usually while I've got my head down in the veg plot, the chattering song of a swallow interrupts the sounds I am used to.

This year the first one returned on 18th April.  And here it is.

Over the next few weeks the number of swallows on the farm will increase and they will start to construct their nests in the stables. But they are not the only birds nesting on the farm. In fact, that I know of, nearly forty species have bred on the farm. I don't actively search for the nests but this past week I've had a couple of close encounters. 

Whilst undertaking a major overhaul of my shed space, including replacement rooves to stop the rain accumulating and pouring through the roof, I came across a nest on a shelf. As surprised as me, a robin darted out.

Fortunately I was able to continue clearing out the shed, making as few visits as possible. It surprised me how long the babies, quite probably only a day old, were left alone. If they thought I was a robin bringing food, they opened their beaks in anticipation. If they cottoned on that I wasn't a robin, they sat tight, resembling an insignificant ball of fur. I look forward to the day the fledge.

And in another shed I came across another nest, this one less surprising as the same bird has nested there for the last three year, thanks to a slipped pane of glass allowing access through the window.
This one is a blackbird's nest. We seem to have a lot of blackbirds this year.

Dry January

January 2022 has brought us some beautiful, crisp weather
and hardly a drop of rain.

This time in 2021 we were very much waterlogged. The ducks enjoyed it! As did the birdwatcher in me, though not quite so much the smallholder.

This year the contrast couldn't be greater. I can't actually remember a drop of rain in January - if there was, it was very early on. 

The ground is delightfully dry. It's so nice not to be squishing, squashing and squelching, slipping and sliding around the smallholding. It's such a treat to be able to work the soil and have it crumble rather than sticking in giant clods to the soul of your gardening shoes. 

I've been cutting back on of my wildlife hedges. These are cut on a three year cycle so there is a variety of stages of growth. It also means they give me more hedgerow fruits.

When we moved in there was not a hedge in sight. Now they are home to all sorts of wildlife. Nests are buried so deep inside that it is only when the leaves drop and I cut the hedges back that I notice them all. One was even used by some type of mouse as a rose hip storage basket.

Cutting the hedges back produces a surprising quantity of cut material. Without a chipper, this would be impossible to manage. But I am able to turn it into valuable woodchip which covers the ground in the forest garden. Any spare is used to ease the way over any muddy stretches of path or goes to bulk up the compost pile. Nothing goes to waste here.

Swarmzzeee!

April was extremely dry and cold.

May was extremely wet, but the last week at least saw temperatures rising. 

This has made for an insanely busy half term for me here on the smallholding. The logjam of young plants is finally starting to clear and the garden is filling up, but my efforts have been somewhat disrupted by the honey bees who have been waiting for this weather to swarm.

In fact I have taken on the pseudonym SWARMZZEEE!

Since the first swarm which I mentioned in my last blog, we've had quite a few more, peaking at three in one day. Our plans to reduce the number of bee hives we keep have been well and truly scuppered. The smaller and medium swarms we offer to other beekeepers or we house them in a small hive known as a nucleus. As the old queen who left with the swarm continues to lay in the nucleus hive, we transfer the eggs into the original hive which is waiting for its new queen to hatch, undertake her mating flight and start laying.

The whole swarming phenomenon is amazing. It's like snow, I never tire of seeing it and just sit and watch in awe. We don't always see the whole process, but when I'm working in the garden I'll hear the bees being unusually noisy. A quick look will reveal many more bees than normal swirling around the hive and flying over the garden near the apiary. Gradually they'll start congregating on their chosen perch where the queen has landed and the tight swarm steadily grows as more and more bees settle. It's possible to get within feet of the swarm if you're brave enough (and ready to leg it if one gets too defensive!)

Once they are settled, they send out scouts in search of a permanent home. Sometimes they leave after a couple of hours, sometimes a couple of days. If we want to catch them, it's a matter of getting them into a nucleus or more usually a cardboard box. If they're hanging on a branch it's easy. You just give the branch a sharp shake so the swarm drops into the box. If they're on the trunk, you have to scoop them in.

If you've got the queen, the rest will head into the box. Some will position themselves at the entrance to the hive, point their abdomens into the air and vibrate their wings. They are fanning the pheromones from the queen as a signal to the other bees. It really is quite astonishing.

If you've missed the queen, they'll go back to the branch and you start the whole process again.

A couple of swarms this year have been absolutely massive, too good to give away. 

The long and the short of it is that we are now up to ten hives, all doing extremely well. With no honey to collect after a disappointing April and May, they are finally starting to make enough to share some with us.

A wet May has meant a larger than usual slug population in the veg plot. I need to encourage more ground beetles in. Until I manage this though, slug hunts are the order of the day. My motto is Show No Mercy! They really can do a lot of damage to tender young plants which I've spent ages raising. So I've developed a routine.

First I clear the ground and scrape off any mulch. I mow the surrounding grass short and clear the edges. This gives the slugs nowhere to hide. Ideally I leave it for a day in the sun. Basically I am removing the slug habitat. 

When the ground is ready for planting, the more vulnerable plants get a pair of woolly slippers made from scrap fleece. I'm using organic slug pellets too, though I only use these sparingly. I'd rather not.

Fortunately we are not short of scrap fleece. The sheep were sheared last week which is one of those annual events which marks the passing of the year. We had to bring them in for shearing as it was a day of heavy showers. For a few days afterwards they were quite cold but when the hot weather arrived they will have been thankful for the trim.

Insects have started appearing in the garden now too. I am seeing lots more butterflies, with orange-tips and brimstones predominant. If I notice anything different I like to take a snap and identify it. This glorious specimen is a red cardinal beetle I found. The variety of insect life never ceases to amaze me. If they were large animals they would be astonishing (and quite fearsome).

The two young turkeys have finally vacated the old shed in the veg plot, along with just two young chicks. Unfortunately one was not strong enough to make it through the first night, so we now have two turkey hens looking after just one chick. I managed to lure them into a temporary set-up in the stables where they have settled in nicely.

Meanwhile the older clutches are growing fast. Here they are trying to establish the threat level of a lettuce.

Going Cheep

April's Showers Arrive Late

I wouldn't be English if I didn't open with the weather.

We've finally has some of this...

Rather a lot. In fact I've had a butt full of it. Water butts of course! I've managed to fill two IBC containers, that's 2000l of water collected. 

Frost-free?
Not only that, but following an overnight frost on the morning of 7th May, we now have a frost-free forecast through until 20th.

I've finally started moving some of the plants out of the conservatory. Chances of anything apart form a light frost are now very low.

Chicks, Ducklings and Poults

The week has been all about baby birds though, We suddenly have 53 extra little mouths to look after!

We bought in a score of ay old chicks. These are hubbards which grow at a medium pace and are well suited to free range life. They are meat birds but we don't place a huge priority on bringing them to weight as fast as possible. The fastest growing birds, as used in the poultry industry (and by unthinking smallholders), just grow too fast for my liking. They are genetic monsters which can easily become too heavy for their legs or hearts to carry them. On the other hand, some of the more traditional breeds really aren't economically viable, producing scrawny birds which take ages to get to weight. This is fine if you are in the privileged position to pay considerably more for your meat, but it is not a viable route.

So we strive for a happy medium, birds bred to grow faster than normal and to put on more breast meat, but which can still lead a happy and healthy (if short) life. The shortness of a meat bird's life always comes as a shock to those not in the know. A commercial meat chicken will have no more than  couple of months of life. 

Gut instinct is that we want our chickens to have a much longer life than that, but this is where reality kicks in. For no chicken bred for meat would go much past 6 months. For starters, it would be very expensive, but more than that any chicken older than that turns to rubber. Imagine eating one of those chicken dog toys!

There is obviously the option to go vegan, and I wouldn't criticise that choice at all. In fact I was a vegan for part of my life. For me the important factor is the quality of life an animal has while it is still alive and keeping our own livestock gives me complete control over that. 

Hot on the heels of the chicks came the ducklings. Indeed it was a lot hotter on the heels than I had anticipated and it had me scrabbling around for somewhere to keep them. Again the ducklings are destined for the plate and will grow quickly. I searched around the smallholding for a suitable container in which to keep them. Finally I found the perfect solution, a large and strong plastic post office sorting box which we had been gifted and were using to store logs.

I fashioned a lid from strong metal mesh and suspended a heat lamp from the rafters in the garage. The poor little things were very sleepy and would just collapse asleep. A week on and they are almost unrecognisable. I am really pleased with how strong they are. If they feather up and the weather warms it won't be too long before they can enjoy free-ranging around the smallholding. For the moment they wouldn't survive the cold and wet, not to mention crows and rats!

Back to the chicks. Just a day old, they went straight into an old gerbil cage we scrounged off a friend. Here they had warmth, food and drink and safety. But their rate of growth is phenomenal and it doesn't take long before the smell  becomes somewhat noxious.

So already, after just a week, their accommodation has been considerably upgraded. We managed to scrounge another post office sorting box so they have moved into the garage alongside the ducklings.

As if that weren't enough to keep us busy, the turkey hen who was siting on eggs under a pile of sticks by the roadside paddock has hatched out al her eggs. I returned home from work to see her leading nine poults (baby turkeys) through he long grass.

I quickly sprang into action scooping the fluffy little balls into my coat pockets while mum did her best to fend me off, flying up at my face with claws outstretched. This is a dangerous lifestyle! 

We had prepared a stable in anticipation so I led mum towards it as she followed the calls of her babies. Again it is much safer for them to be reared indoors until they can fly up onto a perch.

There's more! A week later the other hen who was sitting on the straw bales hatched out her own clutch. Interestingly these chicks look completely different. One mum is a Norfolk Black, one a Bronze, but dad is a mix. However, the poults seem to have taken on the genes of their mums. We had no idea how many eggs she was on so I was pleasantly pleased to fin myself scooping up a dozen baby birds. Just one didn't make it out of its egg. Mum will be a very good parent. I can tell by the tenacity with which she sat for four weeks and by the tenacity she showed in jumping onto my back several times to defend her young.

Pegleg's Veg

Meanwhile in the veg plot some plants have finally started to be transplanted outside. Broad beans, onions, turnips and radishes are the first out. None of thee mind the cold too much, but I've been waiting ages for rain to wet the soil.

In the polytunnel, Florence fennel I sowed last July is just now coming good. Its the first time I've had success with this crop.

I've also been busy creating a new area to attract and feed wild finches and buntings. In general they won't come too near the house but we have really good numbers of Yellowhammers on the holding this year. To attract them I've sown some of the mixed seed we feed the birds into an area bordering the sheep paddocks and orchard. It's already working as there are regularly several birds feeding there, though they are showing a remarkable ignorance of farming. Each seed they eat could potentially have produced many hundreds later in the year!

One For Sorrow

Now for some sad news on the nature front. Having watched the pair of long-tailed tits busily constructing their delightful nest, I went outside to see a pile of feathers on the floor. Something, I suspect  magpie, had found the nest and pecked a hole in the top. The long-tailed tits have abandoned, leaving their tiny eggs in the nest. Nature can be so harsh.

Nature's Undertakers

One of my favourite jobs is turning the compost. It is a thriving city of minibeasts beavering away. Last week I unearthed a large beetle, maybe an inch long, with notable orange blobs o its antennae. A minute later there was another. They scuttled a bit too quickly to get any decent pics.

I looked them up and they are black sexton beetles, nature's undertakers. They sniff out small dead animals then dig underneath them until the corpse is buried. These two had sniffed out a dead rat! Smallholding's not always as glamorous as it seems.

A luxurious new sheep shelter

Our Shetland sheep have had a rest from breeding this year. We missed lambing, but it made for a much less stressful Easter period.

We thought we would lose Rambo, our ram, as he lost a lot of weight over winter. We've changed his wormer and our shearer gave him a vitamin and mineral drench. This seems to have halted the weight loss, though he's not really putting it back on either.

Shetland sheep are remarkably hardy. Rain, wind and snow are nothing to them. In fact they look their most uncomfortable during the summer when the sun beats down. There's not really any shade for them as we can't put them in under the trees - the trees wouldn't last very long at all.

This small paddock near the house provides perfect shade
but only enough grass for about three days.
The sheep appreciate being sheared in late May so they don't overheat.

I've been turning ideas for shelters around in my head. Last year I got hold of some large corrugated roofing sheets. They're second hand but they don't need to be perfect. I don't want to spend a fortune as the sheep pasture is divided into six small paddocks and I'd like some shelter in at least half of them. It will need to stand up to strong winds, sheep scratching and maybe the occasional bout of being rammed by the rams.

I came up with a good design when we constructed the new fenced paddock last year and I did start on adapting this for a more open situation but the ground was rock hard and the job became consigned to the ever expanding to do list.

The corrugated metal sheets became temporary ground cover around the cabin. Until yesterday that is, when a marathon clearing session with the scythe reminded me they were there. On the spur of the moment I decided it was time to sort out a design for the sheep shelters. 

I usually start with an idea in my head and adapt the design as I go along to fit the materials available.

After a couple of hours, using just four wooden posts, four wooden pallets, a couple of lengths of wood and two corrugated sheets, the shelter was complete. When they've munched their current paddock I'll move the sheep in to test the design.

If all goes well I'll start on more shelters. They will be easier with the design now worked out.

A new sheep shelter.
Easy to build, £12 for posts, £6 for corrugated roof, £4 for wood, pallets free + nails and screws.
The key to the design is the wood both below and above the corrugated sheets so the wind can't take them (hopefully!) The one I built last year easily survived 60mph wins.

It was a beautiful day for working outside. There's  not much better than working in the fresh air under our uninterrupted fenland skies.

You'll know how into nature I am. I am happy to just admire, but I've resolved to try to learn a few more identifications. So if I see something which is new to me or which I can't put a name to, I am taking the time to look it up and learn a little more about the fauna an flora around me.

Today's find was a cluster of these delightfully cute beetles on one of the pallets I was using to construct the sheep shelter. A few scuttle off before i could get a picture.
They are in fact 16 spot ladybirds. They are just a few mm long. The feed on pollen, fungi and nectar.