First off, Happy Belated Burn's Night to my Scottish chums. In your honour, we broached our second to last tin of haggis (it is now considered contraband to bring it in - one of those gifts of Brexit), and served it with roasted potatoes from our own production (tatties), creamed swede (neeps) and onion gravy (not a drop of whisky in the house - shock, horror). It was delicious and there was enough left over for a nice snack lunch, hot on buttered toast.
This week's location for the trail camera was, if anything, even more frustrating than the last two. There is evidence of activity in the zone and when I checked it on Tuesday, there were 92 files saved! I left it in situ for the rest of the week and took it down yesterday, all eager to see what had been cavorting around for my entertainment. There were the usual shots of me leaving and arriving, and 89 files showing the sun moving around, condensation drying off, the ambient temperature rising from -1ºC and frosty to 5ºC and sunny over the space of three quarters of an hour. And in all that time, the only thing moving and setting off the camera? A dead leaf on the Old Man's Beard! It was also clearly the only time that there was any sort of breeze during the whole week, which apart from that one morning, was dull, foggy, dank, overcast and really rather cold. Here is the offending leaf - the camera has moved to another spot, which I hope gets something!
This weekend is the RSPB's Garden Bird Watch weekend, which is also running with a French bird charity too. The evidence from a week in a secluded orchard where no birds set off the camera is not entirely hopeful for wildlife. In all seriousness, over the past fortnight, the hunters have "been through" twice round The Shack and seem to have frightened off pretty well everything other than a couple of very dedicated mallard and the small garden birds. Today we did not manage to raise a pheasant, which we can normally do. As they are only supposed to be hunting boar, any claims that the hunters are supporting local wildlife seem a bit spurious to me currently.
On a happier note, spring isn't here yet, but it is definitely on it's way. There are bright yellow catkins around the edge of the One Acre Wood, snowdrops coming up under our quince tree and the daffodils and narcissus around the edge of the Wildflower Meadow are starting to show.
Looking forward, I'm sure wildlife will be back - roaming around today, we found someone's stash of stolen maize husks and a hole in the fence to the farmer's field with well worn tracks all around. They may be elsewhere currently, but I'm sure things will come back. Looking even further forward, the cyclamen are spreading well where we have transplanted corms and the flowers have set seed. Perhaps in 20 years or so the area will be a carpet of white flowers in the early autumn!
One thing we have learned, badgers are not put off by coffee grounds. Back to the drawing board on that one!
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