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1st: Birds and Brash
High winds over Christmas and the New Year brought down a few branches in the garden and today we finally got around to clearing them. Most were from an ornamental maple and a very annoying palm tree that we have, in previous years, cut right back, only to see it grow again. We took the opportunity to cut it right back again today and we also took some of the longer maple branches off too that would probably have been at risk in future storms. The whole lot, along with some of the ornamental pear trimmings are now one huge brash pile at the top of Goat field, the idea being they will provide homes and shelter and perching for a wide variety of invertebrates and vertebrates alike.
Meanwhile, on the bird front, we continue to thoroughly enjoy the increasing amount of bird song and brighter feathering amongst the song birds. As far as they are all concerned, spring is very close and flirting is well under way!! The skylarks in particular are really going for it at the moment.
And the best news of the day - we flushed up a snipe today just by Yellowhammer pond. We know they won't nest here cos of the dogs but if they come to feed, that would be amazing!! They nest on the moor so it's only a stone's throw to pop over here for some grub!! Fingers crossed.
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2nd: Wayfaring Tree
The Wayfaring Tree, Viburnum lantana, is so named because it grows close to paths. It was one of the many species we were given by Devon Wildlife Trust to plant on our land and is second, after the Elder, to start to show signs of life. These are emerging buds - very hairy and made to look even more special due to a light covering of frost!! It is actually a deciduous shrub but can reach up to 5m in height. It has large umbelical type white flowers in the summer which them become red and black berries in the winter and so of course then a perfect snack for wildlife!!
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3rd: Raven
Not the best photos at all, but this is our 'resident' raven who for the last few days has been treating us to some very loud calling from this tree (just on the verge outside our land). We very much hope there is some 'suitable nest place' scouting going on as well as calling for his or her mate!! Ravens are such big birds with huge powerful beaks. They mate for life apparently and although only found in rural areas, they are not uncommon and are in fact expanding their range south eastwards.
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4th: The Garden - in the frost
As well as enjoying the fabulous sunshine of the last week or so, we should also record that we have seen a couple of bumblebees, no doubt awoken by the daytime warmth but hopefully returning to their cosy hibernation places at night when it gets below freezing again. On the other hand frog and toad activity in the garden pond has decreased each night and there was nothing around this evening BUT, we are seeing water beetles in other ponds as well as John's, namely Nick's Yellowhammer and Wagtail. There are all the slow moving, crawling type - the same as the first ones found in John's pond!! Quite fascinating.
We have also been catching the fox on camera again but sadly, have had no other sightings of the badger.
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5th: Emerging buds
Despite the cold of the last week, the daytime warmth from the sun has most definitely been encouraging a few buds - and flowers - to start to open. Here we have purple willow, hawthorn and dandelion. It is such a lift to notice all these signs of spring as we walk around the land.
We were also rather chuffed to count six toads in the garden pond this evening - tonight if the first night for a while that we are';t due to have a frost - and the toads obviously know this. We hope the frogs get the memo soon too.
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6th: From geese to newts with dogs and brash along the way...
The first excitement today was hearing canada geese this morning from the bottom of Oak field, scanning the sky to see where the noise was coming from only to stand amazed as they rose from Nick's pond and then flew right over our heads!! Utterly fabulous.
And then this evening we spotted a newt in John's pond along with a good dozen very small and very fast diving beetles. We then made our way over to the garden pond and counted no less than 11 toads in or around the edge!!! And 'one' frog.
Water is just such a strong magnet for wildlife. And it populates so quickly. We have just bought a new book on dragonflies - confident we will be seeing more of these as well this year!! It is fair to say that EVERY single day, we spot something new or of note on our little ten acres. It is quite remarkable. We also heard the red deer in Andrew's field tonight too AND in the early hours of this morning the Green Lane trailcam caught a hedgehog snuffling under the bird feeders. The video was rubbish quality as the lens was misty but we hope to get a decent video if it soon.
So the photos are of none of the above!!! Instead we have our emerging buds on the willow in our banks, a new habitat pile made from garden shrubs, the completed hedge between Fruit field and the Gathering area, another shot of more starlings passing through and a rather delicious one of Firefly looking very regal and very patient.
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7th: Our first frogspawn
Major excitement this evening as we spotted freshly laid frogspawn - our first of the year. The most remarkable thing though is that it isn't in the garden pond which is still somewhat devoid of frogs, it is is John's pond, right by the place where Nick B. put a clump of his spawn. We managed to get a look at that tonight too (it had sunk in the cold weather) and were chuffed to see emerging tadpoles. The clump in Nick's pond in Oak field was starting to wriggle this morning as the young poles started eating the jelly!! Back in the garden pond, we lost count of the number of toads but saw that some of them are now in their mating pairs. Cannot wait to find toadspawn next!!
Elsewhere we keep spying buttercups peeking out from all sorts of nooks and crannies in the banks and pond edges. The disturbance to the land has probably massively helped their spread as they are so successful at growing from very small pieces of root. We love buttercups - they are hugely invasive but are great for pollinating insects and very pretty!! We also rather like these sorrel leaves - unlike its larger sibling, the dock, sorrel is actually quite an attractive looking plant.
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8th: Adding life to the ponds
Our garden pond is fairly choked with plant life and for quite some time, we have been meaning to clear it. However, with over wintering larva and the early arrival of newts, it has always been hard to know just when.... now that we have ten ponds on the land though, it made total sense to combine a 'clear out' with kick-starting a bit of life in these new ponds. And so today that's what we did. And rather excitingly, we discovered that we did have some frog spawn in the garden pond after all - two small clumps, although one was rather devoid of fertile eggs it has to be said. Nonetheless, both were added to the others in Nick's pond along with a lot of plant life, and the accompanying invertebrate life. We also put buckets of water and plants into Stonechat, Spider, Wagtail, Nick's, Yellowhammer and Mipit Ponds too. We inadvertently transported a few newtpoles and adult newts - so fingers crossed they get on ok!!
Elsewhere, we spied our first ladybird of the year on dead iris leaves in the soakaway, saw the first Marsh Marigold flower in the Garden Pond and enjoyed watching scores of tadpoles in John's pond munching on the jelly from their eggs.
And to cap it all off, we found we had caught a hedgehog on last night's trailcam. It seems that they have woken up!!
The second video is of a Collared dove and a Wood pigeon under the bird feeders - the difference in size is extraordinary!!

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9th: Building nestboxes, Bird cherry and sunsets
We had a fabulous turnout for the Sustainable Chulmleigh Pied Flycatcher nest box building today: over 20 enthusiastic volunteers turned up at the Town Hall and within what felt like minutes, suddenly we had 30 complete next boxes. Over 20 went off to a local woodland and the rest went to the workshop volunteers. We were especially delighted to welcome several young people from The Amber Foundation and look forward to welcoming them to future events too. Everyone was treated to tea, coffee and cake as a thank you with the blueberry cake and flapjacks being singled out for special praise.
Back at Cadbury Cottage we spied emerging Bird Cherry leaves on some of our whips, were delighted to see a toad in John's pond this evening and this morning were amazed to flush up a pair of mallards from Nick's pond.
We ended the day with a glorious sunset - becoming more frequent with all this fine weather.
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10th: Tadpoles, skylarks and fungi
Today it was rather a joy to see free swimming tadpoles in Nick's pond - these are from spawn given to us by Nick Benge several weeks ago. We hope that with the small amount of pond life we have brought in from the garden pond, and the barley straw, that these will all find enough to feed off over the next couple of months. In 'theory' there shouldn't be many, if any, predators in this pond yet and so fingers crossed lots make it to the frog stage so that in three years, we will be overrun with our own home-grown spawn.
It was also great today to see skylarks over Wagtail Pond, We have been hearing them for a few days but not managed to see them, There is no doubt that this year they are singing above our land more than usual - previously we only seem to have heard them from Edward's field when the sheep aren't around.
The bracket fungi is on a dead stump in Swallow field - we are not expert to name it but it's the first time we have seen this sort (we think)
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11th: Another day at the feeders
As well as enjoying the views from the camera lens this afternoon, we also had the joys of seeing emerged tadpoles in all THREE ponds where Nick put the frogspawn: John's, Nick's and Mipit. All being well, this should ensure us a good population of frogs in the years to come. We have also put a bit of new spawn from Dorette in John's pond so helping to spread the genetic mix. It's not really recommended to move spawn in case of disease but as we know the sources of the spawn we have been getting, we are sure we will be ok.
In other news, our mallard pair do a double flyby over the smallholding early evening before landing in or near John's Pond. We didn't see them after that but feel we are seeing them enough now to know they are interested in our land.... fingers crossed for them.
And finally today, we saw and heard our Red Deer stag - he and his girls have not been around as much but with their usual field (Andrew's field next to us) just being poor grass now with no cover, maybe there isn't anything for them to come in for!!!
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12th: Sunsets
We caught the fox on the TrailCam by Rabbit's gate last night - first time in a while. Assume this one is a male, maybe feeding his mate and.or young.
The weather at the moment is dry and often very sunny, albeit cold - we have NO rain at all this month so far!!
It was a joy to watch a pair of buzzards circling on the thermals this afternoon - and we have also seen whirligig beetles in John's Pond - our fifth type of beetle so far!!
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13th: Nuthatches
This morning we had the joys of two nuthatches at the bottom of the birdfeeders today, although aside from a single female, all our bullfinches seem to have vanished which is rather sad.
On the plant front we are now seeing flowering Ground ivy and Dog's Mercury. Oh, and catkins, lots of catkins on willow and on hazel.
It's cold but spring is making quite an entrance,

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14th: Busy birds and busy toads
This is a normal sight at our bird feeders - every single feeder being used at once. The numbers of goldfinches and sparrows at any one time are huge - into double figures for the former and well into double figures for the later.
And after nights of seeing increasing numbers of mating toads, this morning we were delighted to see a huge amount of toadspawn. This photo shows less than 50% of what there is. We will move some to John's Pond, away from all our greedy newts, and leave the rest. It seems that toads are doing a lot better than frogs on our land at the moment.

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15th: Mallards
It was rather exciting to catch our mallard pair on John's Pond last night, although didn't really want them feeding quite so close to where all our tadpoles are... eek!!!

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16th: A Macro Day
And in other news, we disturbed a pair of snipe this morning by John's Pond - our second sighting of snip of our land!!!
And more and more bumblebees are waking up - we are seeing them daily now, alongside sparrows and corvids with nesting material in their beaks. The other day we are fairly sure we saw a corvid with a whole load of wool in its mouth, no doubt taken from somewhere on our land!!
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17th: Rain needed
We are getting a bit desperate for rain as this photo of Mipit Pond, taken two days ago, shows. There is frogspawn in here too!!!! Relaxed at Home

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18th: The views from Oak field are as gorgeous as ever
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19th: Drinking hole
John's Pond is becoming a fab watering hole - we catch crows, magpies, pigeons and doves drinking from here quite a bit now.

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20th: Mallards and Spiders
We were rather excited to see these two land on John's Pond around 9am this morning. They looked very at home and we wonder whether they will nest nearby. Amongst the scrub behind the pond might be ideal as long as they can keep out of sight of the fox!!!
During the morning walk we spotted this very tiny spider (less than a cm) on a red willow in Oak Field. We 'think' it may be a Gorse Orbweb spider. As well as liking heather and gorse, they also like damp and the red willow patch is certainly high. We will keep an eye on this area to see if it stays and/or others arrive, This is almost certainly a female. They appear first in the spring and are bigger.
And today we also got around to moving a lot of the toadspawn into John's pond, there was masses and we left a fair bit in the garden pond.
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21st: No sign of rain
This is shocking: the photos show Mipit Pond today and a mere six days ago - we are rather worried about the spawn here it has to be said. Without rain, and nothing is really forecast, this pond is in danger of totally drying up!!
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22nd: West Country Wildlife Photography Centre
Another fabulous trip to the West Country Wildlife Photography Centre yesterday with the wonderful Claire and Nick Withers from Nature with Nick.
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23rd: Spring is trying
Despite the lack of rain, growth is happening. Buttercups are coming up everywhere in the banks and edges of the ponds as well as a fair bit of Lady's Smock. Stitchwort, Marsh Marigolds and Ground Ivy are flowering and buds are opening on some of the newly planted willow whips.
We did today however, have to do a bit of tadpole rescuing as Mipit pond continues to dry up. We created a channel and moved all the plant life and any stranded tadpoles to the very centre of the pond!! This lack of rain is not good!!
AND, huge excitement - we caught TWO foxes on the Trail Cam by Nick's Pond last night! They look so relaxed.
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24th Birds:
Some great bird spotting today -this is possibly one of our best nuthatch photos to date. We have also seen the snipe again (by John's Pond) and on this morning's walk we saw a jay flying up from the old Poultry Paddock towards the Green Lane. We also enjoyed seeing this delightful pair of siskins on the bird feeders this lunchtime!!
And as the weather continues to be rather warm in all this lovely sunshine, we continue to spot various flies and bees - this is a Drone Fly we believe, very common and widespread and seen a fair bit last year.
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25th: Morning Walks
Walking round the land in the mornings is such fun for the dogs - they all have such a great time and there is so much to see and smell and hear!!
And at the end of the day we also had a rehung gate (need to replace the hurdles now...)
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