Month: June 2017

30 Days Wild – Day 3 – Garden Bioblitz

/ nrowberry / 5 Comments

It’s day 3 of 30 Days Wild and it’s also Garden Bioblitz weekend. We’ve done this in the garden for the last few years. The idea is to record as many species as you can find in your own garden in 24 hours. Hopefully you manage to take a photo of each and load it on to the i-Record website. It was doing the garden bioblitz a few years ago that really got us into looking at the wildlife in our garden and into taking photos generally. So it’s thanks to the garden bioblitz that the Too Lazy To Weed blog was born!

You can find out more about the garden bioblitz on their website: http://www.gardenbioblitz.org/ This year it runs today and tomorrow, so there’s still time to take part. You don’t need any special skills, just identify what you can. For anything a bit tricky there is plenty of help online. It’s a great way of getting children involved in wildlife too.

 

You don’t have to stay up for 24 hours, just do what you can within the time. We started at about 09:30 this morning, so will finish the same time tomorrow. We started photographing the plants – easier as they don’t fly off. So far we’ve got photos of about 20 species – there are no doubt loads more, particularly grass species, but it’s not a bad start. Here are just a few of our weedy wildflowers.

The dominant flower/weed in the garden at the moment is the Red Valerian. It is popping up everywhere. Fortunately it is not only attractive, but the insects love it. Why pay loads for fancy garden centre plants when you can have this instead?

Lady’s Mantle is another common one – I love the way the rain forms shiny beads on its surface, which gradually roll down and collect at the centre.

The pond has a lot of Creeping Jenny around it. It’s a low growing plant that spreads out horizontally, with cheery yellow flowers.

Even smaller than the creeping jenny is the Scarlet Pimpernel, which tends to grow under other larger plants. Maybe that’s how it gets its name – you have to seek it out in the undergrowth?

Two more insect attracting flowers are the Bladder Campion and Phacelia .

A childhood favourite and gardener’s nightmare is Cleavers (or sticky willow, goosegrass etc.). The sticky buds are surprisingly pretty when you see them close up.

Not only are we still taking photos as the day progresses, but I’m still ploughing through the ID on the ones we’ve already taken. So tomorrow’s blog post will hopefully have photos of some of the birds, insects and other animals we’ve managed to find in the 24 hours. Also we should have more of an idea of the total number of species this year. In the meantime here’s at least one mini beast – an often forgotten crustacean from under some of our plant pots – the humble woodlouse.

We can’t count Bert, our elder statesman of a cat, as part of the bioblitz, but he did spend quite a bit of time watching me poke around the garden. Don’t think he really approved of so much activity on a Saturday morning judging by his expression though!

30 Days Wild – Day 2 – Teeming Down by the Teme

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It’s Day 2 of 30 Days Wild and slightly bizarrely I found myself sitting under a bandstand! As I drove home from work today, I was debating what to do for my wild fix. It had been a grey day up on the hill and Titterstone summit had been shrouded in mist for most of it. As I reached Tenbury and drove across the bridge, the sun came out and everything seemed to sparkle, so I decided to go for a walk by the river.

Tenbury is famous for its mistletoe fairs at Christmas time. I wasn’t expecting to see any in June, so was surprised to find a large heart shaped display of it on a wall. At first I thought it was dried seaweed (too many years as a marine biologist have clearly left their mark), which would have been a bit incongruous this far inland. The mistletoe had obviously been there a long time – perhaps some left over display from Valentine’s Day. Mistletoe is after all the kissing plant.

Tenbury sits on the south bank of the River Teme. On the north side you are in Shropshire, but as you cross the river you enter Worcestershire – there’s even a sign on the bridge so you can stand astride the two counties, should you so wish! There’s a big new supermarket by the river, so I parked up and went for a stroll.

 

The river is only small and wends its way lazily through the town.

It is flanked either side by lots of trees and the whole area was full of birds and insects. I don’t tend to think of sparrows as being riverside birds, but they were there in abundance. I watched them perch on branches over the water then dart up in the air, catch an insect and return back to the bushes. A wagtail was doing the same, but slightly more elegantly and on the grass park area next to the water.

The big trees lining the water must make for a splendid habitat for lots of species. I found a large Tree Bumblebee sitting appropriately on one of them.

On another tree someone had put up bat and bird boxes.

There was a lot of cheeping noises in the trees and I found a family of blue tits, with a young one still being fed by the adults. Although I could see them, they were unfortunately hidden by too much foliage to get a decent photo.

The pathway I was on opened up into a large park area, with lots of beautiful mature trees.

Baby chestnuts were forming on one of them. I don’t think I’ve ever really looked at a chestnut tree at this time of year; I’m used to seeing the chestnuts fully formed in the autumn, not as babies like these. Funny to see what felt like signs of autumn, when summer was barely beginning!

 

By this time, the sunshine that had tempted me to stop in Tenbury had given way to rain. I quite like walking in the rain by a river and the ducks of course weren’t bothered.

Although the rain wasn’t bothering me, I didn’t really want to get the camera all wet, so sat for a while under a bandstand on the green.

The only other people about were a few dog walkers braving the rain and it was lovely and tranquil sitting there with the sound of the river and the rain. I don’t normally give much thought to nationality; but it occurred to me that you couldn’t get much more English than sitting out in a bandstand in the summer rain watching people walk their dogs across a village green!

I’m not sure if this would count as “wild”, but it was the most peaceful few minutes I’ve spent in a while.

30 Days Wild – Day 1 – Titterstone Clee

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It’s Day 1 of 30 Days Wild and I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since the last one! A lot has changed for me in the last year, so it will be interesting to see how things compare and how much “wildness” I can now fit into my life. I’m hoping to try lots of new activities/places and not repeat any of those wild things I did last year – not that I didn’t enjoy it all, but it will be nice to explore some new ideas.

The main change for me this year is my job; I now have the pleasure of working for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society two days a week, up on Clee Hill in Shropshire.  Working just 2 days a week, should mean it will be relatively easy to fit something wild into the remaining 5 days. But the 2 working days are longer than I’m used to and with travelling time, I may have to get creative to fit something wild in – but then that is sort of what the 30 Days Challenge is all about.

As luck would have it the first 2 days of June are days I work. So for Day 1 I thought I would explore my work environment a bit after I’d finished for the day.  I work part way up Titterstone Clee Hill, the third highest hill in Shropshire. This morning the hill was shrouded in mist and the summit was barely visible.

But by 5pm, when I finished work, the sun was shining and it was an altogether different view.

I headed up the hill (I must admit by car, or I’d never have got home for dinner!) as far as I could and surveyed the view, which is absolutely stunning. The Clee Hills are part of the Shropshire Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and from up there I could see why. You can see for absolutely miles. On a good day you can apparently see as far as Snowdonia, the Brecon Beacons, the Malverns, Cotswolds and even the Peak District if you’re really lucky. It was a bit hazy for that, but I could still see for miles and miles!

Titterstone Clee has been extensively quarried and the scars on the landscape are very much evident as are the ruins of the buildings.

More modern usage include this radar dome which is visible for miles around.

The weather up on the hill can change very quickly and even while I was there it went from bright sunshine to overcast and moody and back again in a very short time.

I did walk around the upper area of the hill to see what wildlife I could spot. I saw lots of birds, but none would come close enough to let me get a photo. Last week I heard a cuckoo as I parked at the office and we could hear it during the day when the windows were open. Lovely to be working in a place where you can hear cuckoos! No sign of it this evening though. There were several swifts swooping around and some kind of bird of prey in the distance. The closest I got to anything though was the sheep in the road on the way back down. They stared at me as much as I stared at them (maybe they’re doing their own version of 30 days wild?)

From the village of Clee Hill you can see all the way back to Malvern – the view today was all mist blue and reminded me a bit of the distant views of the Lonely Mountain in the hobbit.

The drive back to Malvern from Clee Hill takes about an hour. It is a lovely cross country route, taking in the little market towns of Tenbury Wells and Bromyard. Maybe I can work some exploration of these into my 30 Days Wild?  I actually really enjoy my commute, it’s not exactly a rat race. Already in the few weeks I’ve been doing this, I’ve seen a stoat carrying something across the road and had to jam on the brakes to avoid a deer that jumped out in front of me!

So that’s Day 1 of 30 Days Wild – a beautiful evening stroll around Clee Hill. Not a bad end to the working day!