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| 2024 | 2025 |
| << March 2026 | April 2026 | May 2026 >> |
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1st: Growing It's always tricky getting the greenhouse and cold frames ready for growing our fruit and veg for the year - it means that we have to remove potential habitats and food for wildlife as we 'tidy up' old vegetation and unwanted plants. Having said all that, we have more 'wild' areas on our land than ever before, including the garden, although that needs attention too. But growing one's own food is magical, and there will always be some benefit to wildlife, even if it's just being given the 'leftovers'.   |
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2nd: A day of sunshine Light and colour were on our side today - Merlin picked up almost 20 birds as we walked around Goat and Oak field; the hedges and grass were alive with bumblebees; the Gorse positively glowed; the ponds were filled with whirlygigs, pond skaters, backswimmers and tadpoles 'and' we are seeing more and more invertebrates waking up. Finally, the garden enjoyed yet more 'tidying' this afternoon as we prepped the bed by the greenhouse for seed potatoes. Being outside is an utter joy. We sat on the benches on our walks today and just soaked it all up. 
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3rd: Saplings We have had a few losses amongst the saplings we have planted in the last two years but not many and with upwards of 2000 planted now, we are pretty bloomin' pleased with this. Having spied deer on the land a couple of times, our antennae have been on alert somewhat but it does look (at the moment) that they are not in a rush to come back!! As Keiran's copse starts its third year of growth and most of the other copses, their second, we are very excited about how different the land will look this year. We dream of the day when the tops will be above our heads!!! We have been monitoring which saplings emerge first and as at the end of March, the following were all budding: Broom, Guelder Rose, Hornbeam, Blackthorn, Hawthorn, Dog Rose, Wayfaring, Wild Cherry, Silver Birch, Spindle, Rowan and Field Maple - that's 12 of the approx 29 species we have planted!! (some pictured below) Dog Rose and Wild Cherry   Broom and Wayfaring Tree   Rowan and Silver Birch   |
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4th: Plenty to see It's all rather autumnal: cold and windy, but there is still plenty of emerging delight to see as we wander round the land. 
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5th: Mallards Our Mallard pair are around a lot - day and night. They favour Chaser pond on the whole, although we have seen them in Poultry and Fruit too - the later is drying up mind you so they haven't been seen there for a while. We see them flying over the land too, and sometimes with an extra male in tow. Yesterday though, the trail cam caught a pair of males happily sticking together on Chaser. Male mallards usually outnumber females each breeding season so any males with a mate will guard their female quite closely - until she hatches her eggs that is, at which point he's off!!! As pairing usually occurs in the autumn, it is likely these males don't have mates!!! They may pursue a bonded pair and try to mate with the female anyway, or later, look for females who have lost their nests due to predation!! It will be interesting to see if these two stick around. |
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6th: Tackling the garden The garden is a source of huge joy and frustration - parts of it are too formal and parts are too wild - and keeping on top if it is bloomin' hard. In an ideal world we want shrubs and grass, zero 'borders' and for it to be as wildlife and dog friendly as possible. So a pretty impossible combination really!! The lawns have got massively overgrown and yet it's been too wet to mow - and now it's dry enough, the grass is too long to use the actual mover. Today therefore was spent strimming, as well as removing as many nettles and brambles as possible!! It's all great fun, amidst the aching backs and knees. The plan is to cut the grass and tidy (ish) the borders and then go back to the borders and see what each one really needs: removing, digging over or leaving!! We sent huge apologies to all the invertebrates living in the grass and just hope they all headed into the ten acres where we promise NOT to follow them with the strimmer!!! 
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7th: More Gardening It's all starting to look a little better on the gardening front - the plan is to get all the lawns cut and do an initial border tidy and then go back and tackle the borders more. We are removing as many nettles and brambles as we can as we go, but more will need doing. In terms of bio diversity it isn't ideal to have such plants dominating and with so many non-native plants in the garden, it's not really a question of 'nature knowing best'. We are aware that we need to be extreme and really cut back and then as things grow, we can make informed decisions as to what we allow to grow back and what we don't. We spied a few invertebrates along the way today: oodles of spiders, a green shieldbug, a ladybird (not the usual 7-spot but unfortunately it flew off before we could count the spots), various beetles and worms. And of course we were serenaded by a plethora of birds: blackbirds and chiffchaffs being the loudest. 
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8th: Ponds We are definitely due a pond update - and they are all looking a little different for sure compared to the end of Feb. Disappointingly, most are leaking to a lesser or greater degree. The ones that are doing ok are the two Chasers, although Chaser has leaked a fair bit - it's just big enough to still be holding a lot of water. So just two out of the nine built last Jan/ Feb! Three (Clay Pit, Yeti and Swallow) have zero water in and have never consistently held any. Oak and Fruit are in danger of drying out completely whilst Goat and Rabbit are around a third full (they were maybe half) and slowly going down. It's not quite what we hoped for - this is not nature getting it wrong here, rather the ponds themselves have not been built as well as they should - the clay bottoms and sides should perhaps have been tampered down more. Some of the leaks may seal themselves in time. Where we have no water, we hope that eventually, these ponds will become vegetated (we will help where we can) and so provide a different habitat. The rest need the banks to become more vegetated to provide cover for animals living there and to create greater biodiversity. The marsh marigolds, yellow flag etc will hopefully spread for starters. We have a lot of exposed clay mind you (where top soil was buried) so this will take a while to become colonised. Poultry Pond, built 18 months ago is doing really well, it is teeming with life and whilst some of the banks are steep, the added shelf has provided the shallow areas needed. As we walked around there this evening, all the edges were filled with tadpoles and we could see huge numbers of zooplankton swimming around too. We did a bit of pond dipping and also found two enormous dragonfly larva; tiny newtpoles, mayfly and great diving beetle larva; mosquito larva, a screech beetle, palmate newts, water measureres, pond skaters, whirligig beetles, backswimmers... and some we may have forgotten. We very much hope that the kingfisher returns this year - there will be plenty for it to eat!! In other news, we have seen FOUR species of butterfly today, bringing our 2026 total so far to five: Brimstone, Orange Tip, Comma and Speckled Wood. We see Peacocks (our first sighting) most sunny days. And today has been FABULOUSLY sunny!! Poultry  Goat  Rabbit  Oak  Clay Pit  Chaser  Little Chaser  Yeti  Swallow  Fruit  |
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9th: Mothing A fabulous mothing evening the night before last: 45 of 12 species, 6 of them new - here are some of the highlights (including two non moths) Frosted Green and Hebrew Character 
Streamer and Iron Prominent 
Early Thorn and Purple Thorn 
Caddis Fly Stenophylax permistus and Ichneumon Ophion obscuratus agg 
Early Tooth-striped and Twenty Plume 
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10th: Fabulous find This fell out of a load of long grasses and brambles that we were clearing round the potato bed by the greenhouse. It's a harvest mouse nest - no longer in use thankfully but a fabulous find. Nests are built high up up grasses etc from green stems and leaves which when in use, then look as though they are part of the vegetation. Harvest mice are tiny, less than the size of an adult thumb with a breeding population of less than half a million (rising to one and a half million late summer - they have a LOT of young). They are not legally protected but are classified as 'Near Threatened' in Great Britain.  Meanwhile, the strimming and gardening continues. 
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11th: Mallards Our pair of mallards are around more than ever - we wonder if they will nest nearby - here in the Poultry Pond area could be ideal - no dogs, thick scrub and a pond on the doorstep - how cute it would be to see ducklings on the water. |
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12th: In flower Periwinkle and Dandelion 
Meadow Buttercup and Red Campion 
Ground Ivy and Greater Stitchwort 
Lesser Celandine and Cuckoo Flower 
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13th: Butterflies Our sixth butterfly species of the year - a Large White and we also managed to get a sort of decent shot of one of our many Orange Tips. Plus a gorgeous video of our female mallard on Poultry Pond - we have the trail cam looking in a different direction now. 
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14th: Swallows Our swallows are back!! We knew they were because Otter had stood in Fruit field yesterday doing her 'swallow tail wag' - although we hadn't seen them ourselves. But here they are swooping down over Chaser Pond yesterday afternoon. We are very excited and hope we get a fair few nesting in the barn and stables. |
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15th: Garden Tiger Moths We are doing a mad thing: we are raising some Garden Tiger and Emperor Moths - these are the Garden Tigers - hatched yesterday and today. They are tiny. We can hardly see the eggs with the naked eye and need a magnifying glass to see the caterpillars that are barely one mm long when they hatch. We have 50 eggs and 14 have hatched so far. We have no idea of the hatching or survival rates!! In the picture of the eggs, you can see the outline of a caterpillar with the hairs- isn't macro photography just astounding. The life cycle of these Garden Tigers is fast: 8-10 weeks after hatching, the caterpillar pupates and then three weeks later it will emerge!! These moths used to be common (we recall them vividly from our childhoods) but whilst found all over the UK, they are nowhere near as common as they used to be. Once these emerge as moths in 3-4 months time (if we get that far), we will release them.    |
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16th: Cuckoo Flower Our fields are bursting with Cuckoo Flowers at the moment - we have more than we have ever had. It is a beautifully delicate and uplifting plant and a perfect sign that spring really is here.  |
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17th: Brown Long-eared Bat A delightful find today - we were clearing our stables for our smallholding sale and this chap(ess) fell from some old feed sacks hanging on a partition. We are pretty sure it is a Brown Long-eared bat. The photos are rubbish because we needed to find it a safe space to be and not to handle it too much.It was totally fine though and flew into a crevice in our barn - not before hanging on our fingers and unfurling those seriously long ears!! All bats are protected by law and all underwent a serious decline in the last century. Whilst some are on the Red list, others (including this species) are showing signs of recovery. Monitoring has only been happening for 25 years though which is actually a relatively short space of time. Fingers crossed, this one finds its communal roost and breeding area. When we surveyed the bats here in 2018 and 2025, the Brown Long-eared bat was our third most commonly recorded, with an average of 6/7 per night both years!    |
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18th: Mothing We set the moth trap last night for a visit from a friend's daughter - this stunning Muslin Moth was a new find on our land. And the sun shone today - a lot!! The cuckoo flowers seemed to have doubled overnight and the blackthorn behind Poultry Pond positively glowed!! 
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19th: Walking and Watching Each day, more and more seems to be happening on the land: there is more movement, more colour and more activity. It is very easy to spot wildlife just by standing still at pond edges or gateways, or simply by standing/ sitting still in the grass. We are in for a slightly warmer and drier spell of weather and look forward to more and more waking up. We are now at seven butterfly species as we spied a Small White yesterday. We have also spotted dragonflies over Chaser Pond via the TrailCam but none in real time as yet. And in the last few days, St Mark's flies have been out in their dozens, although a fair few have ended up in the ponds - great food for all the animals living in and on top of the water mind you!! Cuckoo Flower and Marsh Marigold 
Pond Skater and a Wolf Spider 
Orange Tip butterfly 
Greater Stitchwort and Spindle 
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20th: Tadpoles Tadpoles are a fabulous source of food for so many carnivorous animals in ponds: great diving beetle larvae, dragonfly larvae, fish, newts, to name but a few. They themselves can be pretty ferocious carnivores too as this video shows. Not sure what this animal was but they were certainly tucking in to the carcass - the animal will probably have been dead when they got to it - it may even be another tadpole. These tadpoles are in the small bowl of Oak pond which has shrunk massively and part of us does worry that there may not be enough food for them here. So maybe they are turning cannibalistic (which is not uncommon anyway)!!! |
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21st: Orange Tips We are seeing more Orange Tip butterflies than ever before this year and yesterday, walking back from Oak field around half past five in the evening, we spied a single Cuckoo Flower with a good seven or eight of them taking a feast. We didn't have a decent camera with us so this is a 'phone' photo. The close ups were however taken with either the macro or the zoom earlier on, Fingers crossed for another good year of butterflies - we so enjoyed seeing them all last year!!    |
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22nd: Mallards Our faithful pair of mallards are still around, and sometimes spotted during the day as well - this female obviously isn't nesting yet as she seems to be around a lot (they leave their nests just once or twice a day once incubation starts). Having said that, we do sometimes see a male on its own so is that 'this' male or another one with a nesting female elsewhere?? |
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23rd: Caterpillars Caterpillar hatching has been occurring in earnest these last few days. We have had 26 Garden Tiger moths hatch since 14th, although sadly, nine of these have died (not sure why). The rest are growing at very different rates with some twice the size of others. The Emperor Hawks began hatching today and our numbers are 24!! They are very black and hairy and seem very robust. We also have eight Eyed Hawk moth caterpillars - we only received the eggs two days ago (along with Puss and Lime Hawk) - and they began hatching before we took the eggs out of their packaging, resulting in two dying - a big guilt trip followed!!! These are bright green with a fabulous red spike on the tail. Cleaning these tiny animals out and replenishing the leaves is a challenge it has to be said!! But super fun!  Emperor Hawk and Puss moth eggs   Eyed Hawk and Lime Hawk moth eggs   Garden Tiger and Eyed Hawk moth caterpillars   Emperor Hawk moth caterpillars  |
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24th: Moths A successful mothing session last night - a 'practice' run for Sunday's workshop - with four new species and plenty of old favourites. The nights are still chilly mind you and the winds generally from the north. We haven't set the traps this early in the year before mind you, so have no comparison to make as yet!! Muslin 
 Nut tree Tussock 
 Pebble Prominent 
 Waved Umber 
 Brindled Beauty   |
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25th: Large Red Damselfly These have been out in force today - both in the fields and by the ponds. Still no dragonflies - our first spot last year was 14th May - a Broad Bodied Chaser - so we are not worrying - yet!!!  |
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26th: Another fab Cadbury Cottage mothing afternoon Another fab Cadbury Cottage mothing afternoon with friends. We set three traps last night and so took on one each in groups of three or four. The highlights were the Prominents and a very clumsy but delightful May Bug that took huge joy in crawling over Lily's hands (brave lady). We also then enjoyed looking at our hatchling caterpillars under the lenses, including our newly emerged Puss moth caterpillars with their double tails.. The egg photo shows an empty Puss moth egg, complete with nibble marks where the caterpillar emerged. The others are what we hope are eggs yet to hatch plus one that looks as though it has collapsed on on itself, suggested it is no longer viable. Pale Prominent 
Great Prominent 
Puss moth caterpillar and eggs 
Muslin moth 
Brimstone and Red-green Carpet 
Square Spot and Phoenix 
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27th: Butterflies Today was really sunny and Goat field was awash with Orange tip butterflies. We also saw our first Painted Lady and Red Admiral of the year, bringing out list to date to NINE: Peacock, Brimstone, Orange Tip, Comma, Speckled Wood, Large White and Small White.   |
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28th: Lime moth caterpillars And our fifth set of moth eggs are now hatching - these are Lime Hawk moths - very fast and with a huge tendency to climb so that whenever we take the lid off their pot, they are over the edge in seconds. Our current total of caterpillars now stands at 71!!   |
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29th: Yeti's Gate A short compilation of the wildlife passing by Yeti's Gate when we are not there!!! |
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30th: Colours Cuckoo flower and buttercups are completely filling the land just now - it's glorious - along with the stunningly bright white hawthorn! These photos do not do it justice!! 
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