| 2024 | 2025 |
| << August 2025 | September 2025 | October 2025 >> |
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1st: The weather is changing - dry, sunny days are now being replaced with sunny showers and a bit of a drop in temperature. We welcome the rain and the spectacular skies obvioulsy but miss sitting outside and are also aware that our beloved swallows and martins will soon be off. We are really going to miss them.  |
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2nd: September Colour It's September and there is plenty of colour to see around our land. Purple Loosestrife, Water Mint, Oxeye Daisy and Fox and Cubs - all of which are enormously valuable plants for our invertebrate life!! Purple Loosestrife loves wet areas and is great for long-tongued insects, such as brimstone butterflies, red-tailed bumblebees and elephant hawk-moths. We get all three here, though not in great numbers so hope as the plant spreads, that may change.     |
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3rd: Bathing and Dive-bombing Aren't these bathing goldfinches just fabulous to watch - and look out for the dive bombing swallows behind them. Goldfinches have had a fabulous breeding year here - our bird feeding station is full of them: 20 or more at any one time - most of these bathing ones are youngsters - note the lack of red on the face. And our swallows are showing no signs of heading off back to Africa just yet!! |
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4th: It's moulting season for many of our songbirds and we are certainly seeing some very scruffy feathering at the moment. BUT, the feeders are still full with sparrows; great and blue tits and the odd coal; siskins, goldfinches and a few chaffinches; robins and blackbirds. Sunflower hearts are an absolute favourite with them all. Never tire of watching the birds feed. Love the branch along the top too as it provides more natural perching, and for the baby goldfinches in particular, a place to wait and demand feeding!! 🤣 Feeding the wild birds like this is such a positive thing to do and in my view, the benefits are enormous, both for them and for us!! |