by Derek Smith
The pond has been taking our attention over the past week. The tadpoles are eating the remnants of their jelly. There are black masses of them, so thick, you can hardly see the individuals but for the wriggling of the mass. All the tadpoles are out of the jelly, and eating like crazy. There are unfertilised eggs remaining, but they …
A group are working on the scrapheap challenge. This is to make features for the garden out of scrap material. You might see it as a green initiative as, other than for garden use, the scrap might go into landfill. Today’s though is quite a challenge.
The silver birch too is in leaf, tiny as yet, not that the leaves get any great size. Last week, there were only male catkins, yellow like dangling earrings. But, all of a sudden, the female catkins have arrived. They are reddish, quite a bit smaller.
A beautiful, sunny day for our Spring Celebration. There’s plenty of cakes, pizza, and drinks. We have done away with plastic cups, using washable ceramic, and today washable plates too. This takes more work to wash them each time, which is why throwaway cups and plates are so popular, but we must green our lives if we are to evade …
It is a warm, sunny day, 15 degrees, with a slight breeze. Yesterday, it was a little colder and felt more so with a sharp wind. I came in then, and found a few free tadpoles, but today there are many more. Nearly all of them are within the earthenware pot, on its side in the pond, half full of …
It’s raining as I open up the garden. This morning doesn’t feel like spring at all, as if spring is all frolicking lambs and pussy willows. But rain too is spring. Without the showers, no spring flowers. A shivery breeze too. One of those days. After 40 minutes, the rain stops and I wander the garden. The spiraea by the …
I saw the first mating pair of frogs in our pond on 18 February. The male lays on the female’s back and grasps her, holding on for many hours. A breeding pair can be spotted by the two heads, his and hers, and you can see more legs than a single frog would have. She’s bigger than he is, especially …
Twice I have seen mating frogs in our pond. The male is on the back of the female clutching her with the nuptial pads on his hands. On both occasions, I thought there would be frogspawn the next day, and, in both cases, there wasn’t. So the matings came to nothing. Obviously, the female didn’t lay the eggs. It could …
Along with a couple of garden visitors, I was looking at a stationary adult frog in the pond. Hey – said a woman, there’s an extra pair of legs, one frog is on top of another. What had seemed a single frog was in fact a breeding pair. Prior to fertilisation, the male gets on the back of the female, …
Before the red squirrel became rare, it was regarded by hunters and farmers as vermin. They ate the seeds in the fields and grouse-feed too. And much less well known, they added to their diet with birds eggs and chicks, Game keepers shot and trapped the cuties. The grey squirrel was introduced from the US by Thomas Brocklhurst, a rich …
