Rural Life

Things are stirring!

The weather is brighter and we are nearly shot of February and with it the hunting season, so it is lovely to know that the trail camera has finally captured more evidence of wildlife in the local area.  A fox meandered through one evening, while a green woodpecker dug for grubs and other yukky things and a male pheasant turned up as it seemed to be a good idea.  

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While the fox went on its way too quickly to be captured on video, the woodpecker hung around looking for food.  The pheasant spotted the camera and posed most disgracefully, trying to offer his best profile!

As we have a couple of pine processionary nests in the Garden by the Shack, we do what we can to attract and maintain tits in the zone - both blue and great tits have developed a taste for the vile things.  So we keep a couple of stations where we feed the birds without the cats being able to get at them (unless the birds do something very stupid), and today I managed to capture a picture of a blue tit feeding!

In sheltered positions we are starting to get the spring flowers coming through.  Daffodils can be spotted blooming where they aren't in a wind corridor while in some sheltered spots, the cowslip flowers are starting to show.  In a week or so there will be a carpet of them, but for now there are just the odd sprigs.

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We are also starting to feel the joys of spring, as it was warm and sunny enough to get the hammock out this lunchtime.  Poirot has decided it is time to start jumping again, and has made her way on to the top of the bathroom wardrobe again for the first time in 3 years.  If it weren't for the international situation, all would be rosy!

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It doesn't really need saying, but it is important to remember, in these uncertain times, to look around and find joy in the small things.  Time spent outdoors is proven to be good for your mental and physical wellbeing.

 

Don't get too excited!

While it was relatively sunny this week, enabling the mowing season to start and getting early crops planted, I'm sure winter hasn't had its final fling yet!

The broad beans we sowed in November last year are coming up quite well and look mostly healthy.  Inevitably with autumn sown seed there are some losses, but out of the 50, we have 42 up and about which is a bit better than last year, if memory serves.  The first year we had autumn sown broad beans there, I put out over a hundred seeds and 96 produced something.  More recently I have had trouble sourcing seed (which is nuts really).  I buy my planting garlic and shallot sets in the market at la Flèche - the garlic is local, so should be right for the climate, while the shallots come in from Brittany, but they know their onions over that way (hahaha!).  Most of the garlic and shallots are under minipolytunnel - not because they need protection from the elements but because they need protection from cat bottoms and whatever it is that is digging test holes around the Garden.  The trail camera may tell us more one day!

The Asian hornet trapping season starts next week - it may be a bit early, but getting the overwintered queens is important, or they will get the big nests going and kill more bees.  At this time of year it is possible to see the old nests in the trees - the secondary nests are generally high up, while primary nests can be in a hedge or a shed or lean-to.  We spotted one today and walked back to look at it - so high it is nearly impossible to get a photo that is meaningful, certainly with a phone camera.  It does explain where all the hornets came from that ate their way through a huge pile of windfall apples!  It also puts us on our guard for the emerging queens, so next weekend our two traps will be set, as the local observatory gets going for the 2022 campaign.

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However sunny it has been, the evenings and mornings are cold, so Poirot spends a lot of time fire worshipping in the evenings, and the snowdrops are quite happy and flowering away.  Spring is still a good month off!

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There is something about the sharp, crisp light of a sunny winter's day that makes it easier to see problems - like we finally spotted the hornets' nest today for example.  A couple of weeks ago, I looked up at the west facing facade of the house and decided I wasn't happy.  I shared my fears with John and I got the big local masonry firm out to have a look.  The big boss turned up and looked at the wrong chimney and said it was not problem to fix.  No, on our house - so he looked up and said yes, it needed a bit of pointing, no problem, they can do that.  No, no, not that side, look up from the road side - silence, sharp intake of breath, muttered "lalala" and "merde", then - yes, that needs doing, doing very soon, I'll get you an estimate next working day.  Which, to be fair, he did, and we got it back within 24 hours.  Now we wait for permissions to be granted and then we will be covered with scaffolding for a chimney rebuild.  Yoiks!

There has been so little activity on the trail camera, we have wondered if it was still working.  Last weekend, once it came back from a likely but unfruitful site, I put it up overnight in the chicken run, to make sure it was working.  So now you can enjoy the spectacle of chicken breakfast time, from a chicken's eye view!  So much technology for this -

Until next week!

 

Hope springs eternal

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.

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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!

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One thing we have learned, badgers are not put off by coffee grounds.  Back to the drawing board on that one!

 

Of truffles and badgers

The New Year and a new moon, with good conditions for taking a photo, which worked quite well.  It was a cold evening, but very beautiful.

One of our new year rituals, which has been going for about 7 years now, is the purchase and consumption of a small quantity of black gold or truffle.  A few years ago, John found a reliable source, who has a very handsome and effective truffle dog, and since then in early January a small box has been delivered with between 50 and 100g of perfumed joy.  I have a number of tested recipes - truffle omelette, scrambled eggs with truffle, truffle stuffed camembert - and some others that I tinker with each year such as stuffed chicken breast, truffle cream sauce, scallop and truffle slice, truffle risotto.  The feasting lasts about a week, and then that is it for another year, but while it goes on, it's lovely!

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There has been quite a bit of rain this year so far, but Tuesday was a lovely day, so we bunked off for part of the afternoon and went walking, following a very well marked footpath through farmland and woods and what must be very ancient ways before tarmac defined where people should go.

The trail camera had an exciting week.  It was placed in a friend's garden, where there has been some significant digging going on, and we promised we would try to work out what or who the culprit was.  When I retrieved the camera yesterday, my first site visit since installing it, I was delighted to find 50 data files, meaning 25 photos and 25 videos.  Now some were rubbish - me leaving, me arriving, a cat mooching past, a bird going through the line of sight so quickly that the camera didn't capture what it was - but some were very clear in showing what was causing the trouble, and some were other interested parties.  For those who can't be bothered with the videos, here is Badger, banged to rights!

Here is footage of the badger looking around for interesting smells

Here is footage of the badger making a mess.

And here is footage of a couple of passers-by.

The camera has moved on to another site - I wonder what it will find there!  It really is the best birthday present I have had in a very long time!!  Have a good week!

And before anyone gets picky - yes, the time stamp on the videos is out by about 6 hours.

 

 

Happy New Year - 2022, the Year of the Pheasant?

Happy New Year to chums near and far.  And a healthy one too, which is on my mind as others have been "pinged" in our close circle and it's a worry.

The period between Christmas and New Year is always an odd one, and this year is no exception.  The weather has been unseasonably mild, and the last couple of days have been gloriously sunny too.  Yesterday morning there was a hint of mist, which made going up the garden to feed the chickens a slightly spooky affair, as can be seen.

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The mist burnt off very quickly though, and both yesterday and today we have sat out with cats, watched birds, done some gardening and enjoyed nature.  It was lovely to get the hammocks out again today and sit in The Garden watching the tits and a robin working their way through a coconut filled with fat and seeds.  I was surprised to see the robin doing that in fact, as I thought it really was a trick of blue tits and great tits.  We do actively encourage great tits in The Garden as they are the only bird to have decided to eat pine processionary caterpillars, and with nests in a couple of the pine trees round the garden, encouraging them seems like a good idea.  A friend did happily point out that great tits also predate bats, but if my bats live where I think they do, no great tit could get into the space!

The weather is also conducive to good, dramatic sunsets - this was yesterday's.

The French make a big deal of the Reveillon as they tend to call it and New Year, although this year the festivities were more muted due to the charm free Omicron.  In previous years, we have gorged on foie gras, smoked salmon, steak, oysters (occasionally done as Angels on horseback with bacon and prunes), but this year we went for tartiflette, a delicious mix of potatoes (home grown of course), smoked bacon, onion, garlic and Reblouchon cheese.  We didn't eat all this pan, we did save some to go with sausages today!

Wandering around the grounds today, we spotted this rather dramatic and interesting fungus - I might work out what it is by next week!  So bright that I wondered if it was a piece of plastic brought in by one of the foxes in the Orchard, it stood out among the detritus under one of the walnut trees.

And so to the Year of the Pheasant.  The trail camera has been in a very tucked away part of the Orchard this week, and I managed to control myself and not visit it every day to see what it had caught.  We have dodgy photos of a fat pigeon, a rat, a hedgehog, and a possible ragondin, or coypu.  The fox was also nosing around and a blackbird did his thing in front of the camera too.  A duck walked past.  But the most prolific visitors to the area, and yet not the ones that make the paths, were the pheasants.  Here are three girls doing what they do.

The warm weather means that the male pheasants are getting frisky, so clearly my three girls are interesting prey.  There are sounds off too!

But I don't think male pheasants are that bright, and this one has also been tagged by someone, so is also at a bit of a disadvantage.  Doesn't stop him thinking he is pretty fab though!

The trail camera is on the move now, to keep an eye on what is causing damage elsewhere, and hopefully will have some good footage again for next week, when I will be back to Sunday updates.

 

 

Final post of 2021

Well, we are getting near the end of 2021 and quite frankly I shall be glad to see the back of it.  Covid and its constraints on life as we knew it have been a challenge, as they have made difficult things even more difficult than they needed to be.  Finding a quality nursing home and installing someone in it, trying to earn a living, helping people with the bureaucracy of Brexit (getting a residence permit, exchanging driver's licenses, reregistering cars) have all been that little bit harder than they needed to be.  As we get to the end of the year, we are back to the second guessing what the next restrictions are going to be.  Today we did forays into a number of stores for wild bird seed, chicken feed, and store cupboard basics in case, as there is a definite feeling from the media that the next few weeks aren't going to be easy.

But away from that, and looking at the natural world around us, there are still uplifting vistas, so once out of shops and built up areas, things seem more hopeful.  On Christmas Day we did a lovely walk from The Shack to the One Acre Wood and back, with hardly an engine or an unnatural sound to be heard.  Today at The Shack, we looked across the valley to the Chapel and the world didn't seem so bad (although the weather could have been better I guess).

Nature finds a way (listen to Jetho Tull's Jack in the Green), and indeed we are impressed, as well as slightly concerned, at the persistence of a mole that wants to set up home in the near derelict Studio!  There are mole hills by the steps and next to the terrace!

The trail camera also shows us that we are not alone - so here are a couple of videos from near the Studio.

And this one

Happy New Year - I'll be back on 1st January!

 

First image from the Trail Camera

Yes, finally, something other than a cat or a blackbird!  We took the camera down from its position yesterday afternoon and I watched through the videos and looked a the photos.  We now know what is making the tracks around the Garden bit of the estate (not by our house in the village), but it look a lot of zooming and searching and thinking.  This is the best image I could do (because all that image enhancement on CSI and NCIS is military boloney).

Anyway, the camera is now set up in a new position, and I will have to contain my excitement until Saturday next week to see what the new position gets (Big Hint, Santa, I want hares and badgers and deer and foxes and pheasants and partridges and hedgehogs!).

In the news today I see that Richard Rogers has fallen off his perch at the age of 88.  My Dad was very friendly with his first father in law, Marcus Brumwell, and used to stay at the house Rogers designed for him on the Fal Estuary.  I was therefore fascinated to see Creek Vean featured in the BBC obituary.  I remember visiting it once, when perhaps 13 years old.  Mum was having kittens while I was in the house due to the number of quality modern ceramics dotted around, while when I was in the garden I got annoyed with all the stones with holes dotted around - only Barbara Hepworth sculptures, but at 13 one tends to be a philistine!

The photo is from the BBC website, but is credited to English Heritage.

The days are nearing their shortest now, so it isn't surprising to see the moon rise as I go to lock up the chickens in the evening.  Or it shouldn't be, but the anticyclone is locking humidity at ground level so for much of the time we have been "enjoying" wall to wall low level murk.  Yesterday was different fortunately, so I was able to capture moon rise over the Church and next door's underwear (better photo editing required in future me thinks).  It is just past the full, but was exceedingly bright.

Although the bulk of winter is still ahead of us, there are ever more signs that plants are preparing for the spring.  There are seedlings appearing of annual flowers and weeds, and the tiny buttons of next year's sedums by the dead stalks from this year.  The polyanthus that John rescued from a bin are also starting to prepare flowers to brighten up January - and in a clever bit of planting, I got the purple ones in by the shrub with the spookily purple berries.

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Well, that's all for today - there really is very little new going on at the moment, other than laying bets as to when curfew will be reinstated and when travel within France will be limited (my personal bet is for the 29th December).  The next instalment is likely to be on the 27th and hopefully will include more wildlife photography from the trail camera.  In the meantime, Happy December 25th.

 

Short, wintery days

Still no images from the trail camera, after a week at what I thought would be an interesting spot.  What I actually captured was a still and a video of a cat following my trail around the meadow, a still of a blackbird, and numerous images of my legs as I went to check the camera.  Ho hum.  It has been moved and now to see what crops up at a different site - annoyingly, after I'd moved the camera, I found evidence of something having been in the area, which I think is jolly unfair.

So back to more classic ways of capturing images - and during the week we caught first sight of the new moon over the roof of the house.  It was a classic clear, cold evening and a tiny slip of moon like a toe nail clipping!

Of course if it is like that in the evening, you wake up to a winter wonderland of ice the following day, but frost crystals on leaves do make for interesting images.

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Cold mornings also mean that the small birds are keen on the fat balls I put out for them.  As well as remarkably critical tits of various sorts, there is a flock of sparrows that haunts the feeder.  At one stage I reckon there were a dozen on or by it, until Zola the cat trotted around the corner from annoying the chickens and they scattered.  That was also the time when I was trying to get a photo of them on and around the feeder, so typically I have a number of photos of nothing much.  But greed got the better of them and before I had put the phone away, a couple were back.  Not the best photo, but you get the idea.

We were in the One Acre Wood this morning, so I spent some time planning where the trail camera might go, looking at where the leaves have been disturbed or where there are clear trails that aren't us.  I have some ideas!  I was also able to spot the other beech trees in the parcels next to ours, as at the moment, their leaves are mightily conspicuous.

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Checking out the Meadow, after it has had its annual mow, and looking for evidence of wildlife as a target for the trail camera, I took some time to notice the new growth coming up.  It strikes me it would be interesting to do a quadrant test to see how many species there are in half a square meter, as looking at the photo below I can make out two types of orchid, clovers, plantains, moss, grass and others that I am not familiar with.  And therein lies the problem - I am not enough of a botanist to distinguish between clover types, or different trefoils, or different plantains.  Perhaps I need to buy a student for a week!  Anyway - here is a photo - how many can you spot?

I can see at least 9 different things in there.

 

The challenge of wildlife photography

Last week I had little to say and felt very sorry for myself, as a victim of The Cold.  But if the week to 28 November was dull, the week to 5 December was even more so.  I have had to resort to photographs from the archives to explain why I have little new to share.

Photographing plants is relatively straightforward.  They are mostly pretty photogenic in any case, and they don't move particularly far or fast (in most cases), so the main challenges are getting a good angle, focus and lighting.  Almost anything can look quite good!

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Animals aren't so easy, not least as the blighters move around a bit.  You can catch a dragonfly at rest, but it is a bit dull, and can be lucky with a calculating lizard too.

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In Guadeloupe I did get lucky with basking terrapins and a high resolution photo that could be cut down, and that is more than I have ever achieved with Nessie the errant terrapin at the Lake!

Sea birds can be helpful, although a pelican at rest looks more like a badly placed cowpat than anything else to my mind.

Flying pelicans can be dramatic - again with high definition to be able to hone in - and frigate birds are very easily recognised.

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My biggest frustration is trying to capture humming birds - so beautiful and jewel-like, and so damn fast!

All of which is an excuse to say that as yet, I have had no luck with the trail camera and the badgers, foxes and deer it is supposed to be capturing.  Perhaps next week!

 

 

November Travels

As mentioned last week, I made my first trip to Plague Island since March 9th 2020 this week.  The skies were dramatic as I packed the car to leave home, but it was an uneventful drive to the port and a boring wait to be loaded and a flat crossing.  The boat wasn't really that full, so I do query why it took an hour and a half to get off the ferry and onto the M27 - in part it could be explained by a lorry driver that overslept and had clearly forgotten that his vehicle was blocking everyone else, but even so!  I think I was the second last person out of the port not driving a lorry, but then it was all behind me and the adventure could begin!

My first real stop (not including caffeine and comfort) was at Whixall Marina in Shropshire where I met a representative of the Restoring the Marches Mosses BogLIFE project for a walk out to the Mammoth Tower and to see how the Mosses are being restored and rewetted.  For a couple of old crocks, we made good time and covered a few kilometres!  The best photos (I hope) have yet to be downloaded from the proper camera, but I was truly impressed with the change at the former Scrapyard, which is slowly reverting to nature, rather than piles of old tyres, stacks of twisted metal and everything with a slightly oil stained sheen.

The following day, I took a couple of hours out to walk into the centre of Shrewsbury - quite my favourite place in England!  It was sad to see many empty shop fronts, but even so, they still have lots of small independent outlets there.  I also had a quick visit to Smethwick High Street - no photos of that, and smello vision is not a thing yet.  The spices that were on the air as I got out of my car, the enticing shop fronts and the cosmopolitan nature of the area are a total joy, though different to Shrewsbury.

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Thursday was devoted to all things Birmingham, so given HS2 and preparations for the Commonwealth Games, it was easier, but unsettling, to use public transport.  It did all pan out well, until I got back to Tamworth and had to wait for 20 minutes for a taxi, and I wore a mask more than anyone else I saw!  I visited the two Victorian Cemeteries in the Jewellery Quarter - well worth it, if you have the time.  Warstone Lane is more accessible, and I was privileged to be allowed to participate in a Remembrance Day ceremony with cadets from a local school.  It was very special for many reasons.  After a spot of eco-friendly lunch at a local café, I then visited Key Hill Cemetery, including a private view of the catacombs.  This site is more private and is home to nearly 100 London Planes - it is very beautiful.

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My final day was focussed on the River Cole, where Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and the Tame Valley Wetlands Partnership are leading work to improve a number of sites and equip local people and organisations with the skills to maintain then and do more once this funding pot is all spent.  Again the best photos are on the main camera, but the lake at Tamworth was improved with the previous funding, and the work at Meriden Park was at an exciting stage, where for once they are seeking to speed up the flow of water in a river.  I didn't film the way the ground wobbled around us as the digger went past as I was in fight or flight mode!

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The crossing on Friday night was much bumpier, so much more to my liking, and I was home by 10:30am yesterday, as it only took a quarter of an hour to get off the ship and out of the port (not least as I was nearly pole position on the car deck and I know where I've left my car!!).  But after walking 25km in 4 days, and losing a lot of sleep with the ferry crossing, much of yesterday wafted past in a dream-like trance.  Today I feel more normal and we spent time at the Garden, mowing, mulching and for me clearing and forking over a seedbed and sowing 52 broad bean seeds (must wear my glasses next time I buy seeds - 80g not 80 graines!).  I also had a good mooch round, looking at how things had changed, including my radishes sown in leaf mould, and lifted a winter radish for lunch... for the next two days!  At the One Acre Wood we found a single interesting mushroom, but left it there.

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Looking in the flower border, I saw hopeful signs.  I left the annual flowers to set seed and die back, before pulling away the old stalks a couple of weeks ago.  Looking at the seedlings that are coming up, I can see signs that the frilly purple stuff and cornflowers have indeed set seed and are now sprouting to put on an earlier display next year.  I'll not do any more weeding there now, but let things over-winter, and then see if they need a helping hand in the spring.