The garden in March

Black cat in the garden, looking suspicious…

The month of March in the garden is a time of change as we step from Winter into Spring. But I have been out and about in city parks so much lately that I haven’t really done justice to pictures of my own scruffy wildlife garden. But here is my record of the month.

I started with a cat partly because, as editor of a bunch of local newspapers, I was quite pleased with the picture I chose for one of the front pages recently – a cat with kitten publicising a Mother’s Day appeal from a Cats Protection centre. When I tweeted the picture and story there were a lot of retweets. So I figure cats do well in social media!

A publicity picture from Cats Protection in Bridgend wanted us to adopt mother cats with kittens – click on the picture to go to the story and more cat pictures…

Sadly cats also do well in our garden. It’s because we feed the birds and all the neighbourhood cats come around in the hope of a catch. Mostly I don’t mind, as the cats are rather plump well-fed pets and few have the energy or fitness to capture a bird. However, one or two have been a problem – such as the brindled feline that killed Jacko the jackdaw.

We often see new furry faces and just have to hope for the best that they are not bird-murderers. This is the latest arrival…

New kit on the block…

But enough about the cats. It has been a good month so far for birds, although I have been unable to capture good pictures of many of them.

On March 21 I heard the first chiffchaff of the Spring. The day after the equinox. Brilliant! Sadly I rarely see the bird, although I caught it once…

Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) in 2010

Other new arrivals for Spring have been the male and female blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla), although we also see some throughout winter, and male and female chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs), which seem to arrive in separate parties in the garden. On one Sunday in March a couple of male chaffinches attacked my study window, no doubt trying to fight off reflected rivals. They didn’t apparently harm themselves and eventually gave up.

Male chaffinch attacking my window…

Apart from that, we have had more sightings than usual of less common bird-table visitors – great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major), nuthatch (Sitta europaea) and long-tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus). A jay (Garrulus glandarius) has also been around, after many years away from our garden.

Long-tailed tit in the garden in March 2015

Not forgetting our year-round garden natives – robin (Erithacus rubecula), blackbird (Turdus merula), songthrush (Turdus philomelos), dunnock (Prunella modularis), blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus), great tit (Parus major), coal tit (Periparus ater), wood pigeon (Columba palumbus), collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto) and magpie (Pica pica).

Robins are a permanent fixture in our garden

A female blackbird in early March 2015

The grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are a bit of a nuisance at the moment. It’s that time of year when they nibble on the tree leaf-shoots…

Squirrel nibbling…

…and they also strip the bark off trees to make a nest or drey. They have taken a particular liking to a young sycamore.

Squirrel damage to our sycamore

Enough of the animals, what about the plants?

Some flowers are at the end of their season…

Dying hellebore in a pot

My favourite self-seeded hellebore on the gravel bed

When this one fades it blends into the concrete background…

My biggest Mahonia has now lost its flowers and the berries are growing, but there are one or two smaller, later-blooming ones, attractive to bees…

A late-season Mahonia still in flower

Bumble bee – unsure of the species, but not the usual white-tailed Bombus hypnorum we see

I have a better view from my window now that we have cut down a massively overgrown conifer – sold to us decades ago as a dwarf variety, of course.

Conifer stump

Then there are the Spring flowers, both wild and tame…

Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria)

Primrose (Primula vulgaris)

Violet

Bittercress (Cardamine) – a weed in a pot

White crocuses come again every year in a pot with an azalea – but don’t last long

Sweet-smelling Daphne

Daffodils almost in bloom in early March – I can see the flowers from my window now but haven’t been out to take a picture

These daffodils (Narcissus “Tete-a-Tete”) are doing well in a pot by the back door

There will soon be bluebells among the ivy

This straggly ivy was in the house but I put the pots out for the winter and it is flourishing

Hopefully the snake’s head fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris) will flower soon

Sprouting hazel leaves

I always love the colour of new Spiraea japonica leaves

Strangely this year there are no dark-leaved wild violets growing on the gravel bed, but still some that have spread to pots.

Wild violets self-seeded in a pot

But in their place on the gravel is a lot of this…

Welsh poppy plants

So hopefully we will have some of these again, which sprang up in 2013 from nowhere and then disappeared again last year…

Welsh poppies (Meconopsis cambrica) in the garden in 2013

You can read my Welsh poppy blog post here

Next time I expect to be out and about in the city parks again…