Day 30 - 30 Days Wild project

Day 30 has arrived! We have managed to do something connected to nature every day for the last month. What would we do for the last day of the month??? Nature at home - on the hottest day of the year so far. We began with gardening and the ever growing weeds. Now we know that weeds are the flowers that most people don't want in their garden, but we are very tolerant about weeds. If they look pretty while in flower they get room in our garden. Whether they get the chance to go to seed is another question. Wild poppies, violas, calendulas, violets and evening primrose - to name just a few - sprout all over our garden. I do mean ALL over the garden, they grow in the veg plots as well as the flower borders. We do also have a wild flower plot which is looking very pretty at the moment. It isn't just wild flowers but has a few favourites along with them.

While weeding the path I was kneeling down with flowers either side of me, and in the moments when there were no cars passing by, it was lovely to hear the bees buzzing around. Ants and wood lice were disturbed by my weeding but soon scuttled off to find a new home. While looking around the garden during a rest break we found these spiders sitting in the hedge. A tap on the web certainly woke them up and scattered them.

We picked our first cucumber today - they are only mini cucumbers so are not very big but are usually very juicy. The flowers are beginning to set on the tomato plants in the greenhouse and some veg in the poly tunnel finally look as if they might be growing!! Some of our seeds don't seem to have sprouted very well at all this year, but the leeks, onions and cabbages are beginning to look good.
Another break from gardening, and as it is the last day of the month, it is time to collate our wildlife records ready to send to the local records office. Our monthly max for birds in the garden is as follows
Blackbird - 2 male, 1 female, 3 young
Blue tit - 2
Buzzard - 2
Carrion crow - 1
Coal tit - 1
Collared dove - 2
Dunnock - 1adult, 1 young
Goldfinch - 3 ( not seen these for ages)
House sparrow - our usual total of 40-50 adults and several babies, including one that had come into our conservatory and had to be removed!
Jackdaw - 1
Rook - 1
Starling - 16 adult, 4 young
Swallow - 2 (they nest in a building over the other side of our hedge)
Swift - 20 (swooping backwards and forwards in front of the house tonight presumably after flies!)
Wood pigeon - 2
We've not seen our baby Great tits since they fledged and we assume the baby sparrows we have seen to be the ones nesting above our garage, although we didn't see them fledge.We have had only 5 seven spot ladybirds as our max this month along with 2 Small White butterflies and 2 Gorse Shield bugs. The cold weather so far this year has a lot to answer for!
The weather forecast says this hot weather will continue, although that might cause thunderstorms as well tomorrow! But there was a nice sunset tonight and we are putting out the moth traps again in the hope of a good catch!

Day 29 - 30 Days Wild project

Our planned outing today was to start the 5 minute litter pick mentioned on Springwatch. We looked out our 'grabbers' and a rubbish bag then headed down to Newbie Barns.

We took a short walk along the path and pick litter on the return. That way when the bag gets heavier we should be back at the car. Once you start it is difficult to stop but after 15 minutes this is what we gathered.

If we do this whenever we visit a shoreline we feel we will have made a small difference.

Later in the day we were invited to join members of Eaglesfield Garden Club as they visited a couple of the gardens in the village.

Thanks go to Ellen & David and Steve & Marie for allowing us to view their gardens and inspire us with planting ideas.

Day 28 - 30 Days Wild project

A surprise visit by family made us think twice about where to go and what to do.

Meeting up near Carlisle, we had lunch before heading to a Red Cross Open Garden at nearby Scaleby Castle.

The grandchildren were intrigued by the old building and enjoyed climbing ancient steps of the tower.

Adults enjoyed the open spaces and flowers of the garden.

We all enjoyed the refreshments, especially the plate of cakes each !!

A return home for a kick around .

Day 27 - 30 Days Wild project

On looking out if the window this morning it looked as if it might be a nice day - so gardening seemed to be the order of the day. As the morning wore on it got warmer and warmer and the busy day we had yesterday, along with the weeding and planting, began to take its toll. We knew of a Walled Garden that was having an Open Day this afternoon, so the decision was made! Flask was filled, biscuits and cameras packed and off we went.

Shambellie Walled Garden is in New Abbey and was abandoned in the 1960's but then restored in 2005. Sadly it has recently closed again for a variety of reasons but was open to the public today.We have visited it at other times and really enjoyed the garden and bought some lovely plants.
Approaching the garden through the trees is a lovely start to the visit...

...this little face seemed to be welcoming us into the garden

... and then, there it is in all it's glory!

We had a lovely wander around the garden in beautiful sunshine admiring the fantastic display of plants.

 

 

 

The garden was also full of insects today - they were everywhere, on every plant! I don't think we've seen as many insects on so many plants this year.

 

Cups of tea were provided for visitors, which was a welcome respite from the heat as they were served under a gazebo in the shade! A quiet few minutes drinking tea and admiring the plants from our seats was a great end to our visit to Shambellie Walled Garden.

Day 26 - 30 Days Wild project A day trip to Skipton

This trip had been organised for weeks and being an early start and late finish, we didn't think there would be much chance for including wildlife.
The reason for the trip to Skipton was a chance to travel on the Settle to Carlisle Railway over the Ribblehead Viaduct.

We started by getting to Carlisle station and finding plenty of room for our group on the waiting train.

An on-train guide gave us information about each stage of the out ward journey but when travelling at speed, photos taken through a train window are difficult to take!

We arrived at Skipton and wandered the canal footpath where we managed to find a small number of Swans with cygnets and Ducks with ducklings.

A quick walk around the shops made it time to find an eating place with a view.

Another walk along the canal footpath helped with the eventual return to the station to catch the busy afternoon train for Carlisle.

Seats on the train were non existent but as we ventured into the wilds of Yorkshire stations, some passengers got off so we finally got seats and as we got nearer home the sun finally broke through.

Day 25 - 30 Days Wild project

A quiet day. A bit cloudy, with drizzle getting heavier during the day. So not much chance to get a lot done. However, luckily we did have an event to attend during the evening.

We had been invited to Eaglesfield Garden Club to give a talk about moths, moth trapping and some of the names of the moths we've caught in Annan. This is part of the run-up to an event we are helping to run in the village next month.
We are helping to organise a Community Moth Trapping event where we get locals to volunteer to have a trap in their garden. Then next morning experts in identifying moths will gather to empty the traps, record which moths were found where and send the records to the county moth recorder.

Members of the group were very interested in the subject matter and seemed eager to have traps in their garden to find what they might have lurking in their shrubbery. We then passed around some of the moths we had trapped the day before. Please note we have now released these moths in our garden.

Day 24 - 30 Days Wild Project

We had so many other jobs to do today as we had been expecting rain. However, last night, the overnight forecast changed so we were able to set the moth traps again. As we emptied them this morning there were a few different ones which we think we haven't had before but these haven't yet been fully identified or photographed.

These are some of the others which we have had before.

Later in the morning I replaced the coir lining in the topping of one of our bug hotels. The local birds love the material for their nests. Over the next few months, the elements will make them more suitable for pulling apart next year! I also replaced some of the fillings at lower levels.

Before

After

Day 23 - 30 Days Wild Project

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.......
It was such a beautiful day the seaside seemed to be a great idea!

It was so-oh busy we weren't sure if we could even get onto the beach - but luckily we managed it.Here are a few collages of some of the things we found.



Shells



Anemones



Can you see the fish and the shrimp?



Seaweeds

We had a lovely time pottering around the rocks and rock pools in the sunshine.

Views from the beach

And what do you have to have on a sunny afternoon at the seaside?????
There was no ice-cream van in sight so we just had to go to........ Rainton farm, home of...

Once there it was decision time -which one of their 30 flavours of ice cream would we have? With the decision made we headed off for a short walk around the pond and surrounding area.

Everywhere looked lush and green - it really felt like summer was here today!