Posted in Gardening, My garden, Nature, Uncategorized, tagged Gardening, Nature, squirrels on June 6, 2021| 7 Comments »
Grey squirrel eating mahonia berries in my garden
We have three grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) in our back garden – occasionally four. I tolerate them. I even let them eat the slab of bird fat I dangle from the bird table, knowing they won’t attack the squirrel-proof tube of small fat pellets nearby – for birds only.
I don’t mind them eating the mahonia berries, although I am surprised they are brave enough to climb the very prickly leaves. There are enough berries for all. (more…)
Posted in Gardening, My garden, Uncategorized, tagged Gardening on June 27, 2020| 7 Comments »
Persian bellflower (Campanula poscharskyana) in the garden in June
There are some splashes of colour in the garden this month as well as the ever-present green of the trees and shrubs, so I thought I would celebrate this. Here are some recent pictures… (more…)
Posted in Gardening, My garden, Nature, Trees, Uncategorized, tagged Gardening, Nature, Trees on May 2, 2020| 4 Comments »
The view from my study window, looking left over a neighbour’s garden
In every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
[From JRR Tolkien: I sit beside the fire and think
Working from home I have had plenty of time to take in the view from the window above my desk. I am upstairs in my study and the steep, tree-clad garden slopes up in front of me. The view is very green. (more…)
Posted in Gardening, My garden, Uncategorized, tagged Gardening on March 28, 2020| 11 Comments »
Lesser celandine (Ficaria verna) in the garden
I cannot avoid mentioning real life now. I dare say most of us are in some kind of lockdown as the Covid-19 Coronavirus spreads in the UK. It all seems so surreal and here in Cardiff it still does not feel that close, although it must be out there somewhere, prowling the city streets and the supermarket shelves.
It looks like I am one of the lucky ones, working busily from home for the council Highways department, with laptop and mobile phone. It has been a week now and the novelty has not yet worn off. (more…)
Posted in Gardening, My garden, Uncategorized, tagged flowers, Gardening, Spring on May 28, 2018| 4 Comments »
Heuchera ‘Marmalade’
When we lost a huge ash tree in a storm last autumn (see here) it meant we also had to remove a a few big shrubs in order to clear away the tree’s remains. This left some open spaces so we took the opportunity in spring to plant a few new perennials to fill the gaps.
I have been taking snaps of these – and a few older flowers, over the last month or so, and here they are… (more…)
Posted in Gardening, My garden, Nature, Uncategorized, tagged Gardening, Nature on October 3, 2015| 9 Comments »
New shoots of willowherb among the roots
I eventually decided to pull up the willowherb and enchanter’s nightshade that were seeding all over the gravel bed in the garden and was taken by the tiny red growth starting among the exposed roots of the willowherb, like little ruby roses. (more…)
Posted in Birds, My garden, Nature, tagged birds, Nature on June 25, 2015| 12 Comments »
Juvenile great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)
In May and June there have been plenty of baby birds in the garden and I have been trying to capture them. Mostly I have been disappointed. My pictures are rubbish, really. But I felt I wanted to share them just to prove the variety of species we have breeding in our backyard.
The first spot of the year was (more…)
Posted in Birds, Gardening, My garden, Nature, Uncategorized, tagged birds, Gardening, Nature, Spring on March 29, 2015| 11 Comments »
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, (more…)
Posted in Gardening, My garden, Nature, Uncategorized, tagged Gardening, magpies, Nature, Spring on March 19, 2014| 16 Comments »
Magpie (Pica pica) eating a mouse, perched on an ash tree in the garden
Spring is coming to my garden but as well as the usual new life bursting out all over the place, there are some losses, too.
I think the blackbirds are nesting outside my window – I saw a female taking a beakful of grass into a spiky Mahonia bush. But I fear it won’t give enough protection, as the magpies and crows are already (more…)
Posted in Gardening, My garden, Nature, Uncategorized, tagged birds, Gardening, Nature, Spring, weather on February 22, 2014| 20 Comments »
Cherry blossom sprouting on a roadside tree
After months of rain and gales, with floods and falling trees, this week has been comparatively calm in Wales. Winter probably hasn’t finished with us yet, but at last there have been real signs of spring.
I noticed catkins and cherry blossom on roadside trees as I was walking home in the dusk the other night, so took my camera with me next morning. They must have (more…)
The Squirrelbasket 