Autumn 4

Days of hips and haws . . . and holly hedges

Sunday 27th September, 2015

I didn’t get much done in the garden - or take any photos - on Monday and Tuesday but on Wednesday I was up before the birds.  The good news was that there was a spectacular sunrise.  The bad news was that at least one midge was also up before the birds and left an itchy bite on my hand.  But it was worth it to see the sunrise which started as a warm glow in the east and ended with blue sky dappled with little pink clouds.

The first birds to arrive, while it was barely light enough to see them, were various  tits.  They were followed by a couple of siskins.  A few chaffinches were the last to appear.  The chaffinches don’t usually arrive in large numbers until word gets out that Tim has replenished the sunflower seed feeders. 

It is difficult to count all the birds because they move around so much between the feeders and the overhanging branches of the Kowhai tree. And I only see the ones that are visible through the window.  The birds perched in the higher branches of the tree and those down on the path outside the back door are out of my line of vision.  I have found that it is best to count tits before the chaffinches arrive.  And it is best to count the chaffinches just after most of the sunflower seeds have been finished and they are busy picking up the remnants that have dropped on the ground under the feeders.

Sometimes I think I am going cross-eyed trying to count them all.  They keep swapping places, darting from one feeder to another and then up into the tree and back again - competing for  the most favoured positions.  Perhaps they are playing a rather complicated version of Musical Chairs where they keep anticipating that the music will stop but it never does.

This is my rather meagre bird list for last week.  It is not the total number of birds seen - just the highest number of each species seen at any one time.

Robin 1

Blue tit 2

Coal tit 5

Great tit 3

Chaffinch 12+

Goldfinch 1

Siskin 6

There was no “butterfly weather” until Thursday morning when I leant out of the dining room window to take a photo of two red admirals which were sunbathing on the senecio.

One fluttered down onto the sedum after a while.  

While butterfly watching, I have become more and more aware of how important sunshine is to butterflies.  There is little point in planting nectar flowers in the shade as the butterflies always haunt the sunniest parts of the garden. It must be a tough life being a cold-blooded person living on a cool, damp Island.  The red admirals were back on Friday. I also saw a small tortoiseshells sunbathing on the windowsill outside the living room.

There are very few bumblebees around now.  They appear to be mainly males.  They must be approaching the end of their lifespan and are very lethargic apart from one little common  carder that was busy in the purple toadflax.  

The others were on the sedums.  They were hardly moving and I tickled one with a blade of grass to see if it was still  alive.  The only reaction was a sluggish wave of one leg in my direction.  It is a good time of year to photograph them because they are moving so slowly.

One of the hydrangea cuttings that I planted last year has produced a rather fine flower.  Unfortunately it is bright pink - an indication that the compost in the pot is alkaline.  I hope it reverts to its original deep blue when I plant it in the garden.

We are coming to the end of a good year for plants.  The wild angelica has loved the damp weather and this one near the fence is unusually large, quite a bit taller than me.  

There are more and more signs that we are moving into autumn.

. . .  We have eaten the last of the plums and the first of the apples.

. . . There are hips on the wild rose that scrambles up through the hawthorns and haws on the hawthorns.  I should try making wine or syrup or jelly but I am too lazy and prefer to leave them for the birds.

. . .  The wineberries are ripening.  There is more fruit than usual on our wineberry vine - we tried a few.  Tim says they have a “distinctive taste”.  They are sweet and tart at the same time.  I watched the robin enjoying one.  I was interested in the shape of the “core” which remains after the fruit has been removed and read that technically they are not actually berries - they are “an aggregate fruit of numerous drupelets”.  

. . . The blackberries - another berry which isn’t a berry - are also ripe and they taste great now.  We picked a few during a walk in the plantation.

. . . The first beech leaves are falling and are scattered on the front lawn.  

. . . There are a few buds emerging from the nerine bulbs and the first bud has appeared on the colchicum (aka autumn crocus).

. . .  And finally, we had a visit from the first long tailed tit that has been seen in the garden since last winter.

Our correspondence with the Durban bank resumed on Friday.  It is also a case of good and bad news.  The good news is that our contact is no longer out to lunch (or “currently not in the office”).  The bad news is that the email informed us that they are currently updating their records and that they need Tim to sign an indemnity and to send them certified copies of his passport and a utility bill.  This is unfortunate timing because Tim is passportless until his new passport is issued and we only posted the application on Tuesday - but I don’t expect it is urgent.

Yesterday we walked up into the plantation through our top gate.  This route is rather overgrown now because we normally walk up the road and go through the gate opposite the Old Mill.  Tim used to keep our private path clear so that he could make sure that the ditch above our property didn’t get clogged with fallen branches and leaves.  But access has been more difficult since an old dead sycamore fell across the path.  Also the ditch is no longer a problem because our neighbour got two men to dig it out earlier this year.  Our reason for taking this route was a pilgrimage to visit a little oak tree that Tim planted near the stream.  It has survived many hazards in its short life - managing to avoid being mowed or cut down after starting its life in a totally inappropriate place . . . in the middle of a clump of ornamental grass at the edge of a flower bed.  When it moved to the plantation its problems weren’t over.  It was nearly buried by a pile of earth and stones when the men deepened the ditch - but I managed to rescue it.  Now it is looking quite happy even though its leaves are a bit mildewed.

And, of course, work continues on the holly hedge.  I have finished cutting as much of the “back garden holly hedge” as I could reach from our side of the fence and now have permission to trespass in the next door garden in order to cut the bits that I couldn’t reach.  I was nervous about approaching our neighbour but, after a rather disturbed night worrying about holly, I heard him talking to his gardener and rushed over to speak to him before I had time to change my mind .  He agreed to my request and the gardener looked happy.  The only problem was that I was so out of breath by the time I had jogged up his drive that I had great difficulty explaining the reason why I was standing panting outside his front steps.

While I was working on the hedge yesterday, I found an abandoned nest.  It is too small to belong to a thrush or blackbird and no mud is used in the construction - just small twigs and a lot of moss. It looks rather like an illustration of a dunnock’s nest but I don’t think it can be.  We used to see dunnocks quite often but I have only seen one in the garden once this summer.  It may be a robin’s nest.  We have no shortage of robins.

Today I finished cutting the section of hedge between the two hawthorns . . .

. . . and tomorrow I hope to complete this bit - between the top hawthorn and the elder (the trammon tree).

Autumn 3

Searching for swans

Sunday 20th September, 2015

On the whole it was one of those weeks that are best forgotten.  On Monday I battled with the holly hedge.  On Tuesday I decided that I could no longer put off tackling our income tax return - a task that I enjoy even less than cutting holly.  The tax form wasn’t finished until Thursday morning - due mainly to the fact that I kept trying to find other “urgent” things that needed to be done first so that I could avoid it a bit longer.  But also because of a long battle with my printer which the computer swore it couldn’t “find” even though it was listed under devices and printers.  Eventually I discovered that the computer had just forgotten - for reasons known only to itself - that the Canon was its default printer.

Then I filled in my bird list and mowed on Thursday afternoon.  I felt very virtuous and thought all the paperwork was over . . . but the week hadn’t finished with me yet.  If there is one thing I like less than tax returns and cutting holly, it is trying to communicate with bankers. I expect most bankers are nice people and are even kind to their dogs but they never seem able to comprehend the depth of my ignorance of financial jargon.  I came in from the garden intending to relax and have a nice cup of tea but found an email from our bank in Durban.  Some money had arrived in our account and they couldn’t send it to us until we had provided "documents relating to this payment".  I wrote back asking "what documents" and got a reply saying "a statement or any kind of communication confirming values have been paid".  I was tempted to write back "wtf does that mean?" but I patiently asked for a clarification and got another email saying that they required "a copy of the attached for the 2015 payment". "The attached" was a lengthy batch of emails relating to last year's remittance.  It seemed too "Alice in Wonderland" to be required to send them an attachment which they had just sent to us - so I sent all the recent correspondence with their Custodial Services regarding the money instead.  And the next thing I received was an automated response saying that the person I was writing to was "currently not in the office".  So I suppose the email battle will re-commence next week unless she has gone on a long holiday - or has left for pastures new, a fate which has apparently befallen Theo who sorted out the remittance last year.

Just to add insult to injury, I found a reminder about a mandate which the bank required - but had forgotten to send us.  They duly emailed the form to me - but of course it came as an attachment that I couldn’t open until I had located and downloaded the required software.   And finally, I noticed that Tim’s passport had expired earlier this month.  We don’t plan to travel but passports are essential here because there are no ID cards.  The last straw was driving to Ramsey to pick up a passport application form and finding out that parking near the post office was virtually  impossible because the Market Square parking area was being dug up.  The only consolation is that next week can’t possible be worse, I hope.

I should never express an opinion because it is almost always proved wrong - and usually sooner rather than later.  Last week I mentioned that the sedum spectable “flower so late that most of the butterflies have departed before the nectar is available.”  This week while I was watching the birds, I noticed a speckled wood on the paler pink sedum.  It was missing most of one back wing and must have had a close encounter with a bird, probably a robin because I have seen them trying to catch butterflies.

Later I saw two more butterflies on the same plant.  One was a small tortoiseshell.

The other was a red admiral which flew away as I approached but landed on one of the darker pink sedums near the kitchen.

I went out to check on the favourite buddleia.  Most of the flowers have gone to seed but there were still a few small second flush flowers which were very popular.

I was reading about buddleia recently and discovered that it was named to honour the Rev. Buddle.  This made me wonder whether I have always pronounced it wrong.  Should it be Buddle-ia rather than Budd-leia?  To add to the confusion, it is sometimes spelt buddleja!

Well by Saturday, all I had for the blog was a batch of butterfly photos - almost identical to many others from the last few weeks.  I suggested a walk at Pooyldooey so that I could take some photos for the blog and also to see whether there were any swans on the Sulby river upstream from the harbour.  Our son had sent me photos of a family of swans on one of the canals near his home in London but I only saw a few adult mute swans in Ramsey harbour when we drove along the quay on Friday.  I hoped to find out where the group that congregate there in winter went during the breeding season.  

We crossed the white bridge and walked up the path on the north side of the river.  We passed the confluence of the Auldyn and Sulby Rivers.  Our little Auldyn River runs down the glen from its source near Mountain Box and emerges under a canopy of overhanging branches.  There was just a trickle of water on Saturday, but after heavy rain the torrent of water is strong enough to wash down rocks and pebbles and deposit them in the Sulby.

A little further upstream there was a line of large rocks across the river.  We tried to work out their purpose.  They were too far apart to be stepping stones - and the wrong shape.  The only thing we could think of was that they were there to prevent all terrain vehicles going further upstream at low tide.

Our target was the reed beds which seemed a good place for swans to build their big nests.   

The informal path, probably only used by anglers, was deteriorating.

And when we reached the reed beds it disappeared entirely.

There was a consolation, though.  I noticed a beautiful male common blue butterfly at the edge of the reeds.

There was no indication of any swan activity in the area, so we returned to the white bridge.  As we crossed the bridge, I took a photo of a small convoy of mallards.  They had swum upstream to avoid some dogs that were enjoying a dip near the ford and were returning to their favourite spot near the bridge.

Downstream from the bridge we saw two young  herring gulls.

And later we saw this bird on the far side of the river.  It confused us.  Its body looked too dark to be a thrush . . . its head was too light to be a blackbird . . . it had the wrong colour beak for a fieldfare.  We decided that it must be a thrush which had been bathing in the river.  Its dry head looked right and the feathers on its body must have been wet which made them look dark.

There were also some grey wagtails on the opposite bank but they moved too fast for me to get a photo and I was also too slow to get a good shot of a magpie.  But I did find some late flowers up in the park.  This white bindweed could be added to the list of wildflowers that I prefer not to have in our garden.

And then I found some meadow cranesbill - one of my favourites and closely related to the mauvy/blue perennial geraniums in the garden.

This morning we walked down to the harbour to count the swans.  There were two near the ships below the swing bridge and this distant group of six near the harbour mouth.

From across the river, I took a photo of the ongoing work at the Market Square - the cause of Friday’s parking frustration.  They are planting some trees and apparently the square is being “enhanced”.  The good news is that 66 parking spaces will be retained.

So the location of the missing swans has not been discovered. Their breeding ground is well hidden from snooping paparazzi.  I have read that mute swans either drive the juveniles out of the breeding ground as soon as their plumage is predominantly white (in late autumn or winter) - or move with their brood to the wintering area.  So it will probably be some time before they return to the harbour.

It seems most likely that the breeding pairs of swans are somewhere on the Island.  It has been proved by ringing the birds that they can fly across the Irish Sea to neighbouring countries but this is not common behaviour even though Manx swans are more likely to travel than those hatched in England.  There was an interesting article about this subject in the Irish Examiner last year  http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/outdoors/richard-collins/the-adventures-of-our-swans-300217.html

Autumn 2

Rainbow Dust

Sunday 13th September, 2015.

This week I read a review of a book about butterflies.  The title was Rainbow Dust: Three Centuries of Delight in British Butterflies.  I thought that Rainbow Dust was an inspired description of these delightful creatures and wished I had thought of it.  Then I discovered that there is a brand of edible cake decoration glitter with the same name and it lost some of its appeal.

According to the review, butterflies are pointless . . .  “Ecologically, they are fairly useless. Bees are better at pollinating; no other animal would become extinct if butterflies did.”  But their ethereal beauty seems more than enough to justify their existence.

During the second week of autumn our garden was still adorned with Rainbow Dust.  I haven’t spent much time watching them and didn’t see a comma this week but speckled woods and occasional whites are still around as well as these old faithfuls.

There was virtually no rain during the first ten days of September and I wondered whether we were going to have a repetition on last year when the total rainfall for the month was just 13mm - barely over half an inch.  A tiny spider even set up home in the empty rain gauge.  But this isn’t going to be another record dry month because we had an inch and a half of rain on Friday night and early Saturday morning.  The spider is still there.  Its little web is above water level but it may have to move soon because more rain is forecast for the coming week.

My main garden task this week (and next week and probably the week after and the week after that!) is cutting the holly hedge on our southern boundary down to an “easier to manage” height.  I started on the hedge last autumn and finished the section in the front garden and at the side of the house.  I couldn’t continue in the back garden because the new leaves of the daffodils and snowdrops by the fence started to emerge towards the end of November and I didn’t want to tread on them while I was working.

The ground is hard and fairly dry now and the birds have finished nesting so it is the ideal time to work on the hedge.  Cutting holly is one of my least favourite jobs but I am trying to be more efficient and do things in the right order even though I would far rather be sitting in the warm sunshine on the wildflower bank, cutting down the meadowsweet and the ferns.

I often wonder what the future holds in store.  The time will eventually come when I can no longer cope with the work required to maintain this property and we need to move to an easier to manage home.  The alternative would be to stay here and employ help in the house and garden but I am a DIY sort of person - no good at giving or taking orders - so that option doesn’t appeal to me.  If I decide, in years to come, to wade through this blog reliving these garden memories will I be sad to have moved on to a different life? . . .  or will I think “I must have been mad.  Thank goodness I don’t have to worry about mowing and weeding and pruning and cleaning ditches, etc., etc. any more.”?  One thing is certain - I won’t feel the slightest bit nostalgic about being up a wobbly ladder cutting holly!

I have been using quite an assortment of  tools including a rachet lopper for the thickest stems, a rachet pruner and some snips for most of the thinner easier to reach stuff and a Snapper for the thinner but harder to reach stuff.  The Snapper has blades like an anvil pruner on the end of an eighteen inch shaft.  My snips are heavier duty than normal garden snips because I buy them from the Farmers’ Combine and they are actually meant to be used on sheep for removing hoof rot. Other bits of essential kit are thornproof gloves and a light ladder which can rest against the fence and be propped up on a stone because of the sloping ground..

By the time I have cut up three muck buckets of holly clippings, I am usually so tired that Tim has to carry them down to the garage and transfer the holly into tarpaulins before taking it to the tip.

I read an article in the Guardian recently about the short list for a possible new flag for New Zealand.  The spiral pattern on some of the designs caught my attention and I wondered what it signified.  Google as usual helped.  It is a Maori symbol - the Koru - and is  based on the shape of a new unfurling silver fern frond.  It symbolises new life, growth, strength and peace.  I filed the information away in my memory and intending to search for it (probably in vain) when the new bracken fronds unfurled in spring but when I was picking up holly clippings I saw that one of the ferns which I had trimmed recently had produced some new leaf growth and there was a perfect little autumn Koru!

Some of the other ferns by the stream also thought they had been cut back too early!

I hadn’t taken a single photo during the first half of the week, so I went out with the camera on Thursday in search of material.  There wasn’t much in the way of flowers that I haven’t photographed already  but I did find a few fuchsia flowers and some cyclamen in the terraces at the side of the house.

And there was a cluster of late flowers on the climbing rose by the summerhouse.

No late flowers on the rosa rubrifolia but it does have elegantly beautiful hips!

The sedum spectabile flowers are just starting to open.  I bought a couple of plants some years ago because I had read that they are popular with butterflies.  The only problem seems to be that they tend to flower so late that most of the butterflies have departed before the nectar is available.  This one is Autumn Joy and is being ignored by the ungrateful butterflies but at least the bees appreciate the pollen.

The other sedum is a paler pink with more open clusters of flowers.  It may be Brilliant.  One year I saw about two dozen red admiral and small tortoiseshells on a row of these sedums near the white buddleia.  Those plants are looking rather miserable this year because their spot is now too shady.  I moved one to a sunnier position and will have to move the others as well.  The plants need a sunny spot and so do the butterflies.  They don’t like to feed in the shade.  The bricks are to stop cats from digging too close to the plant and have the dual purpose of being convenient sunbeds for the butterflies.

Autumn is supposed to be the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness so it seems fitting to have some fruit photos.  First a Charles Ross.  This is an English classic apple which dates from Victorian times and probably looks better than it tastes.  They aren’t bad but according to one article the flavour quality is “Average”

And another Victorian fruit - the Victoria plum which tastes even better than it looks as long as  the fruit is sufficiently thinned out.  I don’t usually manage to do this, but this year the late frost meant that the tree didn’t produce such a heavy crop and the plums taste wonderful.

This is not really a fruit, just a seed case.  If I am not careful we will end up with a forest of Chilean lantern trees.

And this is the downside of the wild angelica.  These prolific seed heads need to be removed before too much of the seed drops.

PS  A friend commented on our recent dishwasher saga and I sent her this reply “The dishwasher may (or may not) have recovered.  It is working fine on the quick program now (fingers crossed, etc.) but I haven't got up the courage to try it on one of the other programs yet.  I think its problems could have been caused by an air bubble in the system which interfered with the water supply.  We did have a burst pipe in the glen a few days before the problems started and there was a lot of air in the pipes after that.  Cleaning the in-line filters may have helped but I did get an error message on the eco program once after cleaning them.  Then I tried the quick program and it worked - so I have kept on using it.  I am rather paranoid about rinsing the dishes and they are virtually clean before they go in the dishwasher so the quick program is really all they need."

Stop Press:  While I was compiling the post there was an ominous thud from the back of the house.  There must have been a bird panic and a little siskin had flown into the dining room window.  She was lying on her back and appeared to be lifeless but then I noticed one foot twitching.  I picked her up and brought her inside to keep her warm.  

She seemed to be recovering gradually so I took her out and put her in the mesh bowl on the bird feeder.  I thought she might be less stressed with the other birds around.  I keep going out to check on her and she is sitting up with her eyes open so it looks as though she should recover from the concussion.

Last Minute Update:  Good news.  The bowl is empty and there is no sign of the little bird on the ground so she must have lived to fly another day.