Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
20.05.2020
I'll be brief!
Well, there's no choice really. I haven't much to offer just now. But I'm hoping we will slowly get back to some kind of birding. However I will be very cautious.
So, I went to Fairburn and just parked at the roadside down towards Lin Dike. First common terns of the year.
Sand martins in the village by the Old Gaol.
Colton railway bridges [near Appleton Roebuck] was my last call. Azuma trainsets, a whitethroat and as I watched the field north of the bridges one of the buttercups began to walk about!
Oh go on. The trains too - electric and diesel. Electric on the new line, diesels on the old one.
157 UK 2020
Only 45 behind this time last year. And that wasn't the best of years...
April 30th-May 8th 2020
How has it come to this?
Nearly seven weeks since I reluctantly forewent going birding. Now there's a word I've never used before! Forego, forewent, foregone. Oh well, I'm sort of getting used to it - staying home I mean. The garden keeps us both sane - coupled with some model-making and playing trains. Like a good little schoolboy!
Time for the latest flower and plant blog. I've been photographing the garden more than I've ever done before.
Here goes!
Paris polyphylla [Can't resist the idea that this is where the names 'Plaster of Paris and 'Polyfilla' come from!]
Stipa
Flowering ribes aureum
Red helianthemum
Shooting star or dodecatheon. Primula family.
Geranium phaeum
Rubus 'Benenden' or a variety thereof.
Rodgersia
Echeveria - hardy in this trough. What trough? I hear you ask! Well they're in an old ceramic kitchen sink that's been covered in hypertufa so it looks like old sandstone. Honest!
Primula japonica by the stream.
Cercidiphyllum japonica 'Rotfuchs' ['Red Fox' - a German introduction] Compact fastigiate tree.
It has lovely leaves and smells of toffee in the autumn.
Giant redwood - now the biggest thing in the garden. We brought it back from Bodnant nursery in North Wales many years ago when it fitted in the boot!
Meconopsis cambrica 'Frances Perry' - the red flowering Welsh poppy. Returns each year in the same border.
Osteospermum - African daisy
Hostas in hypertufa sinks. What is hypertufa? It's a mix by volume of sifted peat [through a very fine riddle], coarse sand and cement.
Drumstick primula denticulata and farfugium japonica foliage.
Deutzia 'Strawberry Fields' and dwarf deutzia 'Nikko'
Dicentra
Wisteria 'Black Dragon' 'floribunda Yaekokuryu'. Grown here as a standard - it took many years to start flowering but wow, how it flowers now!
A strange twisted weeping willow - very slow growing. It hangs strangely over the path. I have to persuade Sheila not to cut it off!
A sprawling small-flowered clematis whose name escapes me!
Anometheca! There's a red one somewhere.
White erinus or fairy foxglove.
Clematis seedhead
Wild garlic, purple erinus in a real stone trough and alpine strawberry
And that's about it again. I'll finish with a shuttlecock fern.
Stay home, stay safe. Be careful: there's a UK government planning your demise!
17th April to 29th April 2020
Journal of the Plague Year
Part 4: I got a year tick!
I shall just name what you see and add the occasional comment. Enjoy!
This batch of photos is a mix of iphone images and images from my Canon 5Dsr with a 100mm macro lens. Spring flowering now at its best and it's been a very good season for blossom on our trees and shrubs.
Andrena barbilaris - soil nesting bee [I think!]
Solomon's seal. Beloved of sawfly caterpillars.
Welsh poppy: a weed, I suppose, but we quite like it. And, after all, a weed is only defined as a plant you don't like or want.
Dwarf iris pumila.
Mouse plant: arisarum proboscideum. You can see its tail.
Tulip
Speckled wood butterfly on camellia flower.
Lathyrus aureus - apparently rarely grown commercially because germination is so erratic but we have a few plants that have just appeared over the years in our gravel paths. they've then been potted up and grown on.
Greenbottle lucilia semicarta. On perennial honesty
Another andrena species of mining bee, I think.
Cranesbill - a variety of true geranium and bluebells nearly in flower.
Beeflies are very much in the news for some reason. I've only recently learnt to identify them with confidence, probably because there's been a good number in the garden and I've been around more than usual. Anyway, here's a few photos with the close up lens of a dark-edged bee-fly.
And here's Harry, the scarecrow in our vegetable garden.
These bee allies are very tricky to identify with confidence. Here's another. Hoverfly? All suggestions welcome!
Red tulips, speckled wood on honesty.
Blue dwarf lathyrus: just appeared as a self-seedling.
Darmera peltata. Flowers before the leaves appear. Damp ground.
Seed grown paeony mascula
Bluebells have now opened as has the uvularia grandiflora.
I like to try to get sharp images of these insects but I'm sorry I can't name these two.
Lysichiton americanus - impressive pond plant along with the kingcup or caltha palustris
Orange tip butterfly
I call it a flowering gooseberry. officially it's the fuchsia-flowered gooseberry or ribes speciosum.
Now for something else... When in lockdown there are other interests to pursue. Here's Hurricane [so named because he's so very slow] at full speed with a short train of slate wagons powering his way through the cutting...
There. That'll do for now. More next time. If all is well....
The year tick? 5 swifts over the house so far. Pair of pied wagtails seen every day so must be nesting locally. Buzzard frequent too on warmer days. Goldcrests still around in the conifers. Life can go on without us - in fact I think it responds well to the quieter lives we humans are leading.
151 UK 2020
6th to 16th April 2020
Journal of the Plague Year
Part 3
Too much to squeeze in for there to be much commentary. Just enjoy the colours, the forms and the glory of what a garden can do for the soul...
Erythroniums. Grow in large shallow bowl, semi-shade. Wonderful.
Over-the-top primrose!
Hardy geranium
The wonderful perennial honesty [not to be confused with the common biennial honesty.] This one is powerfully scented and makes a large clump.
Clematis on the arbour in the perennial garden.
Strange plant. Name lost.
Amelanchier
Exochorda macrantha 'The Bride'
This is Camellia 'Ruby Wedding'. It was a gift. You'll never guess when!
Biennial honesty
A shade loving daphne just catching the late afternoon sunshine. Variety of daphne odora.
More erythroniums!
Our fritillarias at their best.
A rare allium our son gave us. I can't remember the name. There'll be a name label buried with the plant but I'm loathe to disturb it. Only had it since last summer.
Ornamental pear. Small tree. Thorny.
Apple blossom
Prunus amanogawa - compact fastigiate tree.
Japanese cherry
Zantedeschia. Just outside the house. Survives the winter but usually suffers some damage.
Berberis
Choisya
Crinodendron hookerianum from Chile. Will flower properly later but I like the buds too. Like little lanterns.
Coral bark maple.
Bleeding heart
White comfrey
Hosta June'
Jeffersonia. Unusual leaves.
Schizostylis or Kaffir lily.
Veratrum: large ribbed leaves. Flowers later.
Trillium
Vinca
Pittosporum flowers are tiny. You probably wouldn't notice them.
Rhubarb
Hosta 'Sagae'
And a white corydalis.
More next time...
...assuming lockdown continues...
Take care!
24th March - 1st April
I'm Still Standing!
Well, actually I'm sitting down here at my laptop. Wishing I could go out birding but finding plenty to do here at home. Sheila's very good at that. I think she's worried I'll just sit around and mope. Anyway, we have a very large garden which we used to open in the National Gardens Scheme [aka The Yellow Book]. So I've been photographing flowers and plants in the garden with my Canon 5Dsr and a 100mm macro lens. All handheld because I'm too lazy to set up with a tripod every time.
First batch 24/3 coming up. I will annotate them all but if you just like looking at the pictures I'll be delighted you dropped in!
What I call a snowball viburnum. They smell great.
A few varieties of daffodils. The third photo is of a clump of true wild English daffodils thriving beside our stream.
Shade loving wood anemone.
An epimedium: the flowers are tiny.
Daphne 'Jacqueline Postill' - you can smell this divine plant up to 20 feet away on a calm day. Rare, hates being moved, planted or pretty much anything but once happy can grow to 6 foot. I've tried to propagate it: succeeded once but failed ever since!
Snakeshead fritillaries do well in a damp bed which is left undisturbed. We have white ones too.
Ornamental cherry blossom.
Easily damaged by frost the flowers are beautiful en masse: magnolia stellata. A small plant growing to about 6 foot after many years.
Skimmia flowers - need a fairly neutral soil as do camellias which come next!
Camellias do well in our garden and are wonderful at the moment.
Leucojum or spring snowflake: they make a clump similar in size to a clump of daffodils.
Not fully in flower yet, this is a pulsatilla or Pasque flower in a rare red dress - normally they're purple.
Tiny blue scillas spread everywhere but I don't mind: they soon die down and disappear until the following spring.
A giant mound of acanthus 'Hollard's Gold'. Good flower stems later that can be dried for winter flower arrangements. Introduced by the Romans.
A deep yellow primrose cultivar.
Anemone blanda - naturalise well in gravel.
One of many self-seeded euphorbias in our euphorbia bed.
Second batch: 1/4
This is a white fritillaria. I think I prefer the purple reticulates.
This lone witch hazel flower appeared long after all the others had withered away. Still nice to see.
Kingcup or marsh marigold in the stream.
Dwarf variegated skimmia: good for a tight spot.
Yellow flowering currant bush: tall straggly - only if you really want one!
A late narcissus - nice delicate flower.
The hellebores are almost over now and are setting seed. They love our garden. I spend many hours weeding them out!
Amelanchier: the perfect small tree for any garden: nice foliage, spring flowers - never gets too big.
This is a rubus or thorn family plant. Very invasive it needs to be hacked at every year. But I love those double flowers.
Two photos of clematis amandii. Grows well on a fence with big leathery dark green leaves. Just outside our back door.
Muscari: I wish I could get rid of it!
A very rare muscari relative: we've had it for years and it still only produces 3 or 4 flowers. Dark and slightly threatening!
Perennial candytuft close-up.
Dwarf rhododendron. pot grown it spends its year behind a greenhouse. Been there for years, seems happy.
Hepatica, named for its liver shaped leaves.
Two more rare anemones.
Brunnera: not a forget-me-not even though it looks like one. A much better perennial plant.
True forget-me-not. Leaves very different.
Celandines are a menace in the garden. This is a double, allegedly sterile but I don't trust it...
Tulip.
Mahonia
I like this fern-leaved corydalis. Good in rocky crevices.
Helleborus corsicus. A flower arranger's plant for those green flowers.
Mimosa - I was once told by a nurseryman who visited us: 'That's not possible here in York!' Well it was cut to the ground in two harsh winters but after ten years it regrew from its stump and is now back with us. Quite a big tree. A special favourite.
Pieris - never really taken off in our garden. Nice new red spring foliage that fades back to green later.
Veratrums are special plants with a spire of flowers [this one has green flowers] but the wonderful ribbed leaves are great. Difficult to acquire but worth the wait.
Chaenomeles or ornamental quince. It does fruit sometimes.
Sorry, birders. Hopefully if we pull through this crisis we'll get back out on the coasts, moors and fields looking for birds. In the mentime, take care.
More garden chat will follow in a few weeks....
150 UK 2020!