In amongst the ‘madness’ that has been learning to minister in lockdown, we’ve discovered that the local wildlife is no respecter of social isolation rules!
Firstly we discovered that the Hedgehog we’ve been encouraging for two years had over-wintered! Great excitement, especially as my husband snuck a peek in our hog-houses late one afternoon to confirm that ‘the Hogfather’ as I’ve knick-named him or her, was truly resident – apparently with a preference for the left hand of our two hog-houses. There is a short video of it’s nocturnal wanderings HERE. We do have a hedghog-diner which it likes, but it’s also rather partial to the remains of the sunflower hearts left by the Goldfinches!
Cock House Sparrow taking nesting material into the swift-box 10th April 2020
Then this Holy Week, as we’ve been pottering around the garden trying to make the most of our limited growing space and a collection of out-of-date seeds (anything to get away from the video and computer screen) we heard scrabbling above us. In 2018 we’d also had members of the Blackwater Valley Swift group install a 4 story swift box on our expansive north wall, as we knew that in summer we get a small group calling near the house, and lodging in the neighbouring street. Despite using the ‘swift-caller’ they lent us near the swift-box, we’ve had no joy at attracting returning juvenilles (which is what the idea was) nor any other resident Swifts. However, on looking up this week, we noted that whilst the ‘flats’ as I call them had warped a little, blocking one entrance completely, the scrabbling I heard Good Friday proved to be…. House Sparrows! There are edited highlights HERE of some (fairly shoddy) video and stills, including an extended view of sparrows doing ‘what comes naturally’ when it’s nesting season!
[It was also a chance to practice some very basic video editing skills for ministry, so please excuse the naff header/footer etc.]
Blue-Tit bringing moss to our Birch nest-box 12th April 2020
2018 must have been a good year for our intentions toward wildlife, as we were also given and installed by the north-facing kitchen window, a Birch nest-box – that has likewise remained empty until now. We’d been aware from inside our kitchen over the last few days of an irregular tap-tap-tapping that we couldn’t attribute to anything inside. Yesterday, we discovered that we’ve also got Blue-tits nesting. This morning before our online service, they proved a little camera-shy, so no video to accompany the photos yet! Creation it seems believes in generating the new life of the Easter Season.
So all in all, we’re delighted to have other couples moving in to share our social isolation. In fact, couldn’t be happier… unless the Swifts move in, but they could find it crowded!
Greenfinch catching the sunlight – yes, there was some!
This morning I took the annual hour out to count the garden birds for the Big Garden Birdwatch.
Now obviously I watch the garden birds more often than once year, possibly a little too much, especially when I have other things I ought to be doing! But doing it for citizen science can bring surprises, as it did with last year’s Redpolls.
Sadly however, there wasn’t so much to excitement me this year – though it was good to get our local Dunnocks on the list. As yet there are no Redpolls, nor the Siskin, but the latter don’t usually materialise until late February, for reasons I don’t know.
A split second of peace between squabbling Greenfinch and Goldfinch – probably because they’ve both got their mouths full!
Anyway, this years list is as follows with some notes – as always the numbers are the maximum number of birds viewed at any one time within the hour:
– Goldfinches 13 (quarrelsome bunch)
– Greenfinches 3 (don’t always win their battles with the Goldfinches despite their relative bulk!)
– Dunnock 2 (I think there’s a romance going on, they follow each other faithfully)
– Blue Tit 2 (I really wish they’d use the lovely birch bird-box on their regular flight-path at the corner of the house.)
– Wood Pigeon 2 (who spent most the hour at either end of the fence, like bookends.)
– Feral Pigeon 4 (about a third of the actual number, which continually rises.)
– Robin 1 (as territorial as always, and particularly fond of seeing off the Dunnocks.)
A very poor photo of the resident love-birds – sorry Dunnocks. They are also one of the best songsters in the garden which might be why our Robin doesn’t like the competition!
– Blackbird 1 (briefly, high in his vantage point in the apple tree)
– Chaffinch 1 (briefly identifiable among the Goldfinches but didn’t fight for space to feed, which is sad when they used to be far the most numerous finch in the garden.)
–Starling 2 (numbers are down locally, they used to be almost a nuisance on the fat balls.)
The best bit of bird-watching in the day came immediately after I stopped watching the feeders – as I washed up yesterday’s dishes I watched the corvids mobbing a Sparrowhawk over the houses opposite! Typical.
Since early July we’ve been monitoring the hedgehogs using the garden more regularly, and discovered that at best we now have 3 hedgehogs in the garden – which could be a mother and a couple of babies. Typically the only night we had a photo of three, we’d knocked the settings on the trail-cam and there were no videos triggered! (Grrrr…)
A conversation with a new neighbour (next-door but one changed hands around Easter) produced the news that she has a family of three under the wooden playhouse in the garden. Apparently they steal the food left for her two cats… which might be why the cats were stealing the hedgehog food in our garden when we weren’t using the feeding box as a way of monitoring how many hedgehogs we actually had!
It also explains why our hedgehog houses never got used over the winter – they were hidden under the playhouse two-doors up!
For those who don’t see what we post on the ‘book of face’ and want to see more, I’ve included a couple of photos, and there’s a video here for you to enjoy.
If you look really carefully, there’s a small hog top right of ‘Mum’ and another further away top left of here, near the herbaceous border!‘Mum’ and one hoglet
I get excited about some strange things I guess – they include Hedgehog poo!
A couple of mornings ago (13th April to be precise), I found (and of course we then photographed) what I thought was Hedgehog droppings in 2 places in the garden. It certainly wasn’t the local moggies – they dig up my plants rather than fertilise the lawn! Graham then found a third lot.
I checked with the lovely Jayne at Happy Hedgehog Rescue in Yateley, and she confirmed it was indeed the poo of a healthy Hedgehog.
So of course we put the trail cameras out that night….. Nothing.
So we put them out again last night (14th – 15th April 2019)….. Success!! We have a Hedgehog in our garden again. Couldn’t be more delighted. Simple things.
Looking at the photographs more closely, I’m thinking it has the same ‘roughed up’ bit on it’s left rump as last years, so I’m wondering if it’s the same Hedgehog?
We’ve had two hog-houses in the garden over the winter, and I’d sort of convinced myself that neither had been used. But this chap disappeared toward the opening of the left hand one twice last night, under the second trail-cam. So, now I’m not so sure on that either.
Can you see the little rosette of ruffled prickles on it’s left buttock?
We will re-site and re-set the cameras over the next few nights, and see what we discover.
Goldfinch and (male) Lesser Redpoll #BigGardenBirdwatch2019
OK, so I’m a bit behind the curve but I wanted to log this for posterity.
I always try and take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, and some years I’ve managed to blog about it – usually when something notable happens. Which it did this year. In fact it’s still happening.
The usual suspects visited the garden in my hour on the morning of Sun 27th Jan (9am-10am before I took service) – see the list below. I wasn’t at all surprised to see increasing numbers of Goldfinches – they love the fact we’ve gone over to feeding sunflower hearts as the mixed birdseed was causing too much waste and weeds. What I hadn’t stopped long enough to notice up until that morning was that some of the flock of 20+ Goldfinches were in fact Lesser Redpolls!
Lesser Redpoll – surprisingly stripey – and a little less pink on it’s front so female?
We’ve had Siskin in the past (though not yet this year) but I’d never seen a Redpoll before, anywhere, ever, even though a near neighbour had said she’d had them about 10+ years ago. So a ‘lifer’ for me and a new ‘tick’ for our little suburban garden.
What’s more they’ve stayed among the flock of Goldfinches who arrive several times a day. I may therefore have spent more time watching the garden birds than I might normally do!
Lesser Redpoll – tricky to photograph away from the feeders as they don’t stop still!
Big Garden Birdwarch 2019 – list
Goldfinch 21 (!!!)
Robin 1
Chaffinch 2
Bluetit 2
Greenfinch 1
Redpoll 3
Woodpidgeon 2
Collard Dove 4 (on the increase)
Crow 1
Feral Pidgeon (another, less welcome addition to the list)
In other garden wildlife news, the little pond is now 6 months old, some the fish we never put in are still alives, and so is one of the backswimmers! Roll on spring-time.
Lunch with a view – a wonderful addition to the garden!
I’ve been sitting on the patio for lunch in the lovely autumn sun this week, admiring our new pond and watching the creatures already living around it.
We’ve dreamt of having a wildlife pond for some years. However, in effectively twelve years of ministry training, it wasn’t a priority, and there was always the significant likelihood that we’d rent the house out and move on. However God had other ideas, and having discovered this year that we’re staying put for the foreseeable future, it seemed right that a few home improvements were in order. Ponds are so much more interesting than new bathrooms (though we’ve done that too)!
16th July 2018
We only have a small garden, so it had to be a small pond. We also know the ground we’re on well enough that layers of builders rubble lie under our garden, and with a gravel-bed geology, digging even a small pond was going to be very hard work. So, I’m afraid we found someone younger and fitter than us for that bit. The lovely Matt (son of a friend and colleague in ministry locally) even provided a pre-formed liner he and his father had never used!
18th July 2018
However, we wanted a pond that hedgehogs could live with, without drowning, that insects could drink at, that might encourage damselflies and dragonflies, and host interesting creatures. So it needed a shallow-end of gravel. So we sunk the preformed liner an additional 3 inches below ground level, under the edge of the house near the patio, and not directly under the trees. It was dug and filled with tap water on 16th July, and allowed to settle for a couple of days.
Bumblebee drinking 18th July 2018
This was I guess the other part of our wedding anniversary present to ourselves – the first bit being a trail-cam to video the hedgehogs! So, on 18th July we were able to add plants, gravel and pebbles, and start to see what happened. On that very first day, we had a bumble-bee drinking on the gravel, and I was a kid at Christmas… the project was looking like it was going to be a success.
Over the next two months, various things have been added. Some plants came home from a holiday visit to RHS Rosemoor. The collection of rocks was added to with fossils we’d collected on visits to beaches, favourite hills, and other significant places in years passed. Tidying out the shed allowed us to use our son’s cast-off wood (he carves greenwood spoons) to create a small woodpile that was accidentally positioned under a drip from the guttering where it will rot nicely we hope. Effectively it’s a pond of memories as well as for the future.
PLANTS:
Rat-tailed maggot – the lavae of some hoverfly
Yellow water irisIris pseudacorus – put on the shelf of the pond one end; the wind kept blowing it over, so eventually it was weighted into place by having some ‘fairy-stones’ wired to it. Chosen for the lava of dragon- and damselflies to crawl up to hatch.
Water mint Mentha aquatica – very attractive to insects, and should give shade, nooks and crannies for the water creatures to hide in. Purple Loosestrife Lythrum salicaria – initially put on the shelf the other end, but it regularly got blown over too, and was really too close to the Water Mint. Dad has a plant in his flowerbed that has flowered endlessly this year, so we moved ours out into the ground surrounding to the pond. FrogbitHydrocharis morsus-ranae – went in initially floating on the surface, as a native oxygenator, but very quickly looked like it would take over in our small pond, and became home to a lot of snail eggs (see below) so that went after about a month. Water-lily (for which the label is still in the pond!) A small specimen recommended by the lovely lady at Maidenhead Aquatics for our size of pond. Initially on a shelf, and then moved down onto an old roof tile in the bottom – the tile is curvy so will also provide a home for water-creatures that need to hide. Lampranthus brownii, Coreopsis rosea ‘American Dream’, Dianthus ‘Whetmans Stars Supernova’, Agastache ‘Kudos Silver Blue’ and Ajuga reptans ‘Braunherz’ were all planted around the pond to attract insects.
Greater-pond skater or Back-swimmer 27th September 2018
PONDLIFE:
We also imported some pondweed from a neighbours small pond, complete with two Great Pond Snails, from whence the snail-eggs came we guess. As it transpires, the weed (which has since vanished interestingly) may have contained fish-eggs. Another friend donated us some nymphs from their much larger pond, a couple of Common Pond-skaters, a Great Water-boatman (otherwise known as Back-swimmers), and one small fish that crept into their net.
As I’ve sat by the pond for my lunch this week, I’ve watched not one, but eight small fish (and no more mosquito lavae)!!! Our friends swear blind they’ve not been surreptitiously filling our pond with creatures, so we’re assuming there were eggs in the weed from the neighbour who also reputedly has fish. They will have to take their chance as we’ve not added a pump, as it’s not advised if you want dragonfly lavae – they tend to get stuck in it!
European Hornet drinking 27th September 2018
Water-boatmen apparently fly at night and are attracted to light, which is why we put four cheap solar-lights round the pond; this seems to have worked as we now have three water-boatman! A dragonfly did a circuit of the pond but didn’t stop, but a Hornet has been a regular visitor, joining the hoverflies that sit in the sun on the pebbles.
To say we’re thrilled that all this has been achieved in a little over two months is an understatement. The big test will be whether we get frogs and toads in the spring, who hatches, and what more wildlife we’ve had visit by this time next year. I will of course, log all the excitement here.
With the end of the holidays we’re not being quite so regular in our setting of the trail-cam.
However, I’m pleased to report that the regular hedgehog (what we first thought were leaves stuck on it’s bottom may perhaps be scars but make good identifying marks) is apparently now using the hog-house that we cleaned out Bank Holiday weekend. Our first video of this was 4th September, but we had a second video last night 10th September, so we’re thinking the ‘hogfather’ may now be resident?
Look closely – two hedgehogs again!
Last nights other exciting hog news was video of two hedgehogs, the ‘resident’ hogfather, and one other (on the left in the video). The first time this happened, the second hedgehog seemed much smaller than the other. On this occasion the second hedgehog seems of similar size?! Wondering if that means there are three hedgehogs using the garden?!
Planning additional protection for the hog-house from the elements – we need to prune a large bush out front, and think we’ll use some branches to cover it for the winter. However the question is, do we need another hog-house as well?
Back on a fairly toasty morning in early May I was gardening and heard a rustling sound. Since no bird flew away, I explored the source of the sound, and discovered a little mound of prickles under some ornamental Cuckoo Pint. We had…. our very own Hedgehog in the garden! Cue> much excitement.
Being a hot day this was a great excuse to down tools, as I didn’t want to disturb it so much that it got dehydrated. Gardening was carefully resumed late afternoon, and then late evening we stood watch. About 9.45pm we were not disappointed, and even managed a decent snap in the gloaming.
First recorded evening visit: 7th May 2018 9:54pm
We had known there were hedgehogs in the area, and when the fence had been replaced a couple of years before had left a small unobtrusive gap between the front and the back, but had no idea that a hog was making use of it. Now, we hastily took further steps: by next evening we were the proud possessors of a hog-house and later in the week some hedgehog food!
Hedgehog-house installed with fresh hay: 8th May 2018
There ensued many weeks which were acts of faith, that ‘Mrs Tiggywinkle’ was resident. We put out food, and it vanished. We guessed the local cats may have taken an interest in the food, but couldn’t be sure who was eating. There was also no way of telling if anyone was using the hog-house. There were other things going on in the garden, not least a small pond was dug in July (another story), but we made sure there was a shallow end so that our assumed resident could get out. We even arranged for a lovely local friend who had recently had Hedgehogs in her front garden to feed it whilst we were away on holiday!
On our return, there were found to be spider webs across the door of the hog-house. Daytime inspection confirmed that no-one was resident, and we feared the worst, but the hog-food was still disappearing. But, we had bought ourselves a wedding anniversary present of a trail-cam, so we pressed it into action.
7th August 2018: trail-cam proof that we still have a Hedgehog!
The first night proved there were indeed cats in the garden. However, the following night brought great joy: we still had a hedgehog, and s/he was exploring the edge of the pond, and appearing to go to drink among other things! The first decent video is here!!
It looked like s/he was quite chunky from the stills we had and on it’s own, so by this stage we’re thinking it’s a male hedgehog and had re-‘named’ it The Hogfather! But another surprise was awaiting us.
We were intermittently at home, so not setting the trail-cam every night, but on 15th August, we were surprised to find not one, but two Hedgehogs!! One (with what we think is a bayleaf on it’s back – we’d moved the large potted bay-tree so we could see the pond and it had shed leaves!)
My first sermon as Curate at St. Mary’s Old Basing and Lychpit for 8am Eucharist (BCP) and 9.30am Sung Eucharist (CW)
TRINITY 5 (PROPER 11) Readings: Isaiah 44:6-8, Romans 8:12-25 and Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43
The parable of the weeds and wheat as an inspiration to grow in patience and maturity.
The stinging nettles flowering amongst my rambling rose!
There’s something about training for ordination that means there’s much more willow herb and considerably more stinging nettles growing in my garden than there were two years ago! I could explain that it’s for the benefit of the moths and butterflies whose caterpillars thrive on both, but… er… that would be a fib, and I guess it’s best not to start my association with this pulpit by telling lies. So, no, it’s simply that there aren’t enough hours in the day, at least not ones with any willpower and energy lying around spare, for my garden to look as weed free as I would wish it to be.
Some would say that a weed is simply a ‘plant that is in the wrong place’, and to some extent that is true of the weeds in our Gospel this morning, growing among the wheat which the farmer has had sown. But, these weeds present a difficult problem.
The chances are that the weeds of which Jesus spoke, looked not dissimilar to the wheat that the farmer was trying to grow. Unlike my stinging nettles and willow herb, darnel, which some think this Biblical weed to be, is a plant that not only looks incredibly similar to wheat until it’s seed heads ripen to almost black, but it is very vigorous, has stronger roots than wheat, and is regarded as poisonous because it plays host to a nasty fungus. You can quite understand why this isn’t something you want mixed up in your wheat crop, and why, on discovering it, the immediate reaction is to get it out as soon as possible.
But no, the farmer is adamant that the weeds are there to stay until the end of the growing season when the field is mature and ripe for harvest. Only at that point, when it’s really obvious what is weed and what is wheat, and root damage to the wheat is immaterial, will the labourers be allowed to rip out the poisonous darnel and burn it. Then the wheat can be harvested and stored to sustain the community. It’s a management technique that requires patience, and an understanding of how both plants grow.
God has a habit I’ve discovered, of not being very good at conforming to any timetable that WE might wish to set him. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here to be honest; I’d still be tucked away in St. Peter’s in Yateley. As far as I was concerned, THIS (point to clerical collar) wasn’t meant to happen for several years yet, IF AT ALL!
God however, is just as adept at taking a lot MORE time than we might think ideal about sorting out some things. I am sure as we watch the news from Ukrain, Israel/Palestine, Iraq or Syria, or hear that another friend has been diagnosed with cancer, MS, dementia or some other debilitating disease, we wish and pray that God would simply get on with stepping in NOW, to solve the problems and diseases of the world. He doesn’t, because though he dislikes the weeds in the garden of his creation even more than we do, he doesn’t want to destroy the things that are maturing nicely before they are ready for harvest. Or, more accurately, he is active in the world, but he’s active in ways we perhaps find difficult to recognise or understand.
There is a reason why patience is part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit – and it is because it forms part of the character of God that we are called to reflect in our own lives! God’s judgement is delayed because he is patient. This parable isn’t particularly about who’s going to be in, and who out, of the Kingdom of Heaven; who’s good and who is bad. Rather, it is underlining the fact that God is waiting for the wheat to mature into a crop worth harvesting, one that can be clearly distinguished by it’s character from the weeds that otherwise look similar but are different and have become poisoned.
Much as we want it to be, the evil in the world around us is not going to be weeded out overnight by an army of God’s labouring angels. We’re not going to be isolated from the rubbish of the world, we HAVE to live alongside it, with the same patience as God. But this isn’t an excuse to sit back and do nothing, to live, as our Epistle puts it, according to the flesh. Led by the Holy Spirit we are instead called as children of the resurrection NOT to be fearful, but to be adventurously expectant, to grow as strongly and as fruitfully as we can towards maturity, so that we will be recognised for what we are: children of God, affected, but uninfected, by the evils of the world; a part of God’s coming harvest.
This parable isn’t about the stuff we do wrong, or a finger pointing exercise about what others foul up. It’s about the stuff we do right, the stuff that reflects the faith we proclaim. This parable is saying there’s time to do MORE of it, BECAUSE God is patient.
For example there’s time to take part in the Pilgrim Course, to share and learn more about Christ, the how and where of his work in our lives. There’s time too, carved out though it might need to be from our own timetables of living, to make our faith more recognisable to others than it is already. On the world stage that MAY mean that those people who are appropriately placed should step out, trusting God’s strength, to help humanity change for the better; equally it probably DOES mean that we should hold those situations, and the people that can make a difference to them, in prayer.
It’s worth remembering that this parable doesn’t liken a farmers wheat field to the church, because in Jesus’ time the church didn’t exist! The wheat field is the world, the world of Old Basing and Lychpit, as well as further afield, and it is in THAT context that Christ will one day be looking at us to see whether we are discernibly different to the weeds that he knows he will sadly need to destroy. That’s why we are called to engage with our local schools, the food bank, and probably a myriad of other community activities I haven’t seen yet, in ways that mark us out as people of Christ.
There is a deep challenge to us all within this Kingdom parable; but rather than being a source of gloom and fear, this challenge should be a cause for hope. Whatever stage of life and faith we are at, because of God’s patience there is time to grow towards maturity in our love of Christ, and the degree to which we reflect God’s character. If we will allow ourselves the freedom to grow, the Holy Spirit is eager to be at work in us, enabling us to be part of the harvest that will be stored in God’s presence as part of his glorious Kingdom.
The reason that this weeks Mistle Thrush has had so much seed to feed on, is because of the Starlings.
I know that according to last years RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch suggested that Starlings are among the garden birds most in decline, but there’s never been any shortage of them in our Yateley garden. Numbers regularly reach double figures actually in the garden, and there are many dozens around our estate, often lined up on the television aerials.
They are far from being dull brown birds, with plumage that close up is not only startlingly marked, but also an amazing combination of iridescent green and purples. Yes, they really could be described as beautiful.
But, they squabble atrociously and the noise can totally dominate the garden soundscape. Especially when there’s food on offer. We can refill our birdseed feeder and an hour later these greedy guzzlers have totally dominated the feeder, chucking the majority of the seed on the ground beneath. Some of the Starlings also feed beneath, but here the main beneficiaries are the Chaffinches, Wood Pidgeons, and Collared Doves.
What it does mean is that the Chaffinches who actually quite like to use the feeder too, only get a look in towards the end of the shift, ditto the Blue Tits who won’t stand up to the Starlings, and the Robin who has mastered the perch but rarely gets to feed there.
Birds feeding in the first snowfall of January 2013 – you can see the attractive pile of waste food below the Starlings favourite feeder, but is it a health risk to other birds?
We do have other feeders to suit various tastes, so the most of our garden bird life gets something, but the grass is being utterly ruined and I’m concerned that the dropped food might contribute to the prevalence of Fringilla papillomavirus(warty legs)that we have in our Chaffinches – could the mites that cause it be transmitted through the mess of waste food?
With this weeks snow melted, and the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch over, it is my intention to try and sweep up as much of the waste the Starlings have created as I can, but I know it’s going to build up again very quickly. So what I’m wondering is if there is some design of bird feeder that will create less waste, or discourage the Starlings, who are perfectly capable of feeding on the fat balls or table feeders we have on offer?!
It’s not that I want to get rid of the Starlings completely, but just find a healthy balance in the way we feed the birds who frequent our garden.
Theoreo means, in New Testament Greek, to wonder, ponder, or 'chew over.' Theore0's are my reflections on current issues, facing the Church and Christians. I frequently consider issues such as the relationship between faith and economic life, Christianity and leadership and, other ethical issues. Many of these issues are covered in a book I co-edited called Theonomics (available either through Amazon or direct from Sacristy Press). All views are my own. I aim to provoke and stimulate wider debate, for the common good and hope not to offend.
Firstly we discovered that the Hedgehog we’ve been encouraging for two years had over-wintered! Great excitement, especially as my husband snuck a peek in our hog-houses late one afternoon to confirm that ‘the Hogfather’ as I’ve knick-named him or her, was truly resident – apparently with a preference for the left hand of our two hog-houses. There is a short video of it’s nocturnal wanderings HERE. We do have a hedghog-diner which it likes, but it’s also rather partial to the remains of the sunflower hearts left by the Goldfinches!
Looking at the photographs more closely, I’m thinking it has the same ‘roughed up’ bit on it’s left rump as last years, so I’m wondering if it’s the same Hedgehog?
