Practice week

It is practice week - where is the rain?

30 May to 3 June 2016

Monday afternoon.  After I finished compiling the previous post we went for a late afternoon walk along the roads at the top of the glen.  Before we left I took a few photos in the garden.  A couple of white butterflies had been flying around vigorously for most of the afternoon and I finally got a good look at one.  It was a female green veined white.  Then she settled on the hawthorn above my head  but she had her wings folded.

I kept the camera focussed on her until she spread her wings but as I pressed the shutter she took off and I ended up with a blurred shot of about three-quarters of a butterfly in flight.  Not my best butterfly photos but the hawthorn flowers are lovely.

Then I saw something small, possibly a moth, flying by my feet.  It landed with its wings folded up - obviously a butterfly - but I couldn’t see it clearly.  Then it opened its wings for a brief moment and I glimpsed the unmistakeable brown and blue colours of a common blue female before it flew off.

Our outing was later than we planned because the test match against Sri Lanka lasted longer than we expected.  But five o’clock is a very pleasant time for a walk on a hot day at the end of May.  The sun was low and the shadows long.  The birds  were singing enthusiastically and some of the residents of the glen were sitting in their gardens enjoying the last bit of the “stunning day”.

When we approached the end of the road up the glen we saw a hooded crow fluttering around on the bridge over the river to Glen  Auldyn Lodge.  It kept flying up and trying to perch on the railings but they were too smooth and too thick for it to grip.  It tried a couple of times but kept falling back onto the bridge.  It appeared to be a fledgling - possibly a little too young to have left the nest because it wasn’t capable of flying more than a few feet.

After a while it decided that walking was a better option.  It strolled across to a gap in the hedge and disappeared into the shrubbery near the gate.

There was a lot of cow parsley flowering at the edge of the roads this week.  The flowers are not unlike my pignuts but the Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) which is also known as wild chervil or Queen Anne’s Lace is a  much taller plant.  

There was a particularly fine patch at the side of the Fern Glen road.  We used to have some growing in the garden, under the big beech tree near the house, but I think it got crowded out by the bluebells and Welsh poppies.

I don’t usually photograph plants in other people’s gardens, but near the top of the Fern Glen Road I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this beautiful wisteria growing up the wall of a friend’s house.  

It is probably a superior variety to ours and is flowering much earlier.  Our wisteria seems to be confused by the cold spring and is putting too much energy into producing a vast number of leaf shoots.  It has flower buds too but they are just starting to open.

When we got home I took a few photos of the Granny’s bonnets which have seeded themselves at the bottom of the low stone wall outside our gate.

Tuesday was hot again.  The TV weather forecast had mentioned the possibility of showers on the Isle of Man but there wasn’t a cloud to be seen.  We did the shopping and then I sat in the sun, trimming the grass on the edge of the back lawn.

After lunch we walked in Skyhill plantation because it is shadier than Brookdale.  We followed the route of the mountain bike race that we walked two weeks ago - but reversed the direction of the loop in the northern section of the plantation.

The sea was the deepest blue imaginable and Ramsey looked splendid.  Perhaps distance lends enchantment to the view . . . but I cannot think of a better place to live than near Ramsey.

I missed getting a photo of a small hawk flying past the edge of the wooded area.  It looked brown seen from above and could have been a female sparrowhawk.  There was no white tail band so it wasn’t a hen harrier.

Further on we passed a sun spot where there was a gap in the trees and saw two speckled wood butterflies doing their spiral dance cum fight . . . contesting ownership of the area.  They were joined by a third  butterfly which apparently won the contest on account of its superior size.  It landed on a bramble leaf in the coveted territory - the first red admiral that I have seen this year - and the first time I have seen a different butterfly interacting with the speckled woods.

Wednesday morning brought a change in the weather - overcast skies mean midge weather. It was a good morning for doing a bit of tidying and cleaning inside the house and preparing the spare room for our son’s visit.

I went out briefly onto the front patio to take a photo of the poppies.  They have been enjoying the last few warm sunny days.

Apart from this enormous crane-fly which came into the dining room, I have only been watching the wildlife through the window.  I looked this chap up and he is a Tipula maxima - “one of the largest crane-flies”.  I can believe that - his body was about an inch long.

There wasn’t anything very exciting outside - apart from two magpies, which we often see on walks but seldom see in the garden.  There were just the usual birds and an occasional white butterfly.

By the way, I referred to the crane-fly as he partly because he was a male and partly because I have decided that I prefer the language rules regarding gender neutral pronouns as explained by a commenter on the Guardian website:

"He" is the gender neutral pronoun, it has simply fallen out of usage in that way in the latter half of the 20th century because people (incorrectly) assume that it applies only to males. The same pronoun is also used to indicate a male and "she" is used to indicate female in the same way as the race "man" refers to both men and women, but "man" also refers to the male gender and woman, the female. The use of "they" as a singular is now preferred and seen as more politically correct term, but linguistically its usage in this manner is suspect to say the least.”  

To be politically correct should I have referred to Number 2 Ratty as “they” in the previous post?  I think not.  If I wrote “they climbs up the bird feeding station pole” it sounds too ungrammatical and “they climb,etc.” sounds too plural and creates a vision of a stream of Ratties climbing the pole.  I shall stick to “he” and risk the wrath of the libbers and social justice warriors. Before you start muttering “Bigot!” - let me explain that I am not as much of an old right wing curmudgeon as I sound.  I am all in favour of tolerance and politeness to all mankind  - but I don’t see why I should be bullied for using a word that someone else happens to dislike.

In the afternoon we walked up to the Brookdale top gate.  It was Goldilocks weather - too hot going up, too cold in the wind at the top (when we paused to watch the motorbikes racing past) and just right walking back downhill.  The Scottish mountains were hovering bluely above the sea haze.

As we walked down we heard the ominous combination of a noisy helicopter nearby and lack of road traffic noise.  We read later that there had been accident at Guthries and “The rider involved has been taken to hospital with potentially serious injuries”.  

Everything in the garden was peaceful.  The weigela was looking good.

And the afternoon sun was shining on the tiny pink London Pride flowers and the poppies near the front steps.

Thursday morning was hot and sunny again.  I wondered whether I should put the sprinkler on the driest parts of the back lawn in the afternoon.  I dither because I don’t like wasting water but at the same time I don’t like looking at dead patches in the lawn. It is silly to brood over trivia when other people have far worse problems to contend with.

I was working in the house again and only went outside a few times - once, to bring the milk in and twice to chase cats out of the garden - but I did see something interesting outside the kitchen window.  A magpie was under the bird feeder, poking around in the niger seed where I scattered the hedgehog pellets.  Perhaps La Gazza Ladra - the thieving magpie - has been taking the discarded hedgehog food.  A pair have been seen in the garden once or twice lately.

It is hayfever season again and Tim is suffering.  I read that grass pollen is the usual suspect at this time of year.  We have decided to stay indoors this afternoon stock up on eye spray, etc. tomorrow morning.

Friday.  The last shopping trip before the races start tomorrow morning and sad news.  The fish shop which used to be open six days a week, but has only been opening on Friday mornings during the last year is to be sold and there will be no source of fresh fish in the north of the Island.  Supermarket fish doesn’t count as it isn’t really fresh.  The local fishing industry has almost been destroyed by overfishing.  I thought in retrospect that I should have said to the Fish Lady “So long and thanks for all the fish” but then I thought not . . . she may not be a Douglas Adams fan.  

We walked in the late afternoon but kept to the roads hoping (probably in vain)  that the pollen wouldn’t be so bad there - but it must drift around everywhere in the wind.

The highlight of the outing was walking under this lovely laburnum that overhangs the road at Milntown..

27 to 30 May

The mystery of the disappearing hedgehog pellets.

27th May to 30th May 2016

Friday.  After a break of two days we put our hiking boots on again this afternoon.  The morning was overcast with thick hill fog, but the sun finally emerged and, if we are lucky, it has ushered in a spell of warmer weather.  But chickens cannot be counted because tomorrow is the first day of TT practices and we never know what to expect from the weather during TT fortnight.

We walked down to Poyll Dooey and the Sulby.  The bikes are starting to gather and we had to wait for a group to speed past before we could cross Lezayre Road.  

There wasn’t much new at Poyll Dooey. I tried to photograph the flowers on a whitebeam but the light was too bright. Then  I thought I saw an interesting bird on the far side of the river but it turned out to be a supermarket packet, suspended from a gorse branch above the water.  Before we left I pursued another small tortoiseshell butterfly around the edge of the meadow near the car park.  It kept moving just before I managed to get it in focus but I persisted and it eventually settled.

The only other thing of interest was a pair of swallows sitting on the power lines above the glen road.  I love watching them flying.  Their displays are better than the Red Arrows but they move far too fast for me to photograph.  The light wasn’t ideal but a sitting swallow was my only chance of a photo.

This reminded me that we saw two swallows perched on the wires above our gate a few days ago and wondered whether they had returned to nest on our neighbours’ porch.  A few years ago some swallows built a nest on top of a light fitting outside their front door.  The swallows weren’t ideal house guests because they dropped a lot of dirt on the doormat and got quite aggressive about people using the front door but our neighbours missed them when they stopped returning. While I was watching the birds  I could almost imagine the one saying to the other “See that porch over there . . . that’s where I hatched!”.

Saturday.  There was a message in my Inbox this morning.  One that I was half expecting but hoped that I wouldn’t receive.  It was from the “Hedgehog Lady” . . . to let us know that the little sick hedgehog, which we had nicknamed Spike (he was subsequently given the far better name of Fingan, because we found him near St Fingan’s chapel), hadn’t survived.  So sad.

Later we had a morning walk up Skyhill. The bluebells near the road were fading fast but they are still flowering up above Cartwright’s glen.  The seasons are about a week later up on the Lezayre tops.

I will remember it as a rabbity walk - if I remember it at all.  On the way up we startled a brown furry creature on the path ahead.  It hopped off into the undergrowth.  I only saw it for a second.  It was too small to be a wallaby and rather big for a rabbit.  Perhaps a hare, or maybe just a big rabbit.  Then we met a baby rabbit on the path alongside the Skyhill farm fields.  And when we passed the top Ballagarrow paddock we saw two more rabbits and a pheasant.

And that wasn’t the end of the rabbits.  On our way back we saw the baby rabbit (or one of his friends or siblings) for a second time.

After taking the photo of the rabbits we walked up to the Skyhill farm boundary and then along the path that passes the corner of the plantation near the keeill before turning downhill.  We made our way through the tall conifers and stopped to look at one of the old “Grannies” which must have been growing here before the other trees were planted. This one had been almost uprooted by the gales and was leaning at a drunken angle on the neighbouring trees.  I usually assume that the "Grannies" are Scots pines but the cones looked too big.   I took some photos of the bark, cones and needles and we now think this one is a Monterey Pine.

This part of the plantation can be quite eerie when the wind is blowing and the trees are creaking and groaning. My note describing the route on my list of walks reads “Skyhill and top path around Goblin woods”.   Dorothy once described these woods as the sort of place where one wouldn’t be surprised to meet goblins.  

Instead of the usual hoarse cooing of the woodpigeons, and song of the robins and chaffinches,  the soundtrack to our walk was the continuous macho full-throttle roar of motorcycles racing up the mountain road on the far side of the glen. There is no speed limit on the mountain road and there have been so many accidents up there that for the past few years the section of road from Barrule Park to Creg ny Baa has been restricted to one-way traffic for the TT fortnight - to make it slightly safer.

In the afternoon I mowed.  It needs to be done at least once a week at this time of year.  The list of “things that need to be done” like trimming edges and hedges (and the ever necessary weeding) is getting longer and longer.

Sunday started off sunny, and warm with just a hint of a breeze.  A perfect late May morning.  I was standing in the kitchen admiring the hawthorn blossom and the newly mown lawn.  Lawn mowing is rather tedious but I try to milk the procedure for small pleasures.

I was counting the birds on the feeder and thinking that the hawthorn had flowered later than usual this year - just in time to live up to its common name of May blossom - when Tim came into the kitchen and we started discussing whether the siskins and chaffinches were competing to be the most numerous birds in the garden.  Then Tim asked whether I had cleared up the hedgehog food under the feeder.  I had intended to take the newly opened packet of “Spike’s Dinner” down to Peel in case the “Hedgehog Lady” could use it but I forgot.  So I sealed up the packet and tipped the food which had been offered to Fingan onto the ground under the Kowhai tree to see whether any of the birds were interested.  They weren’t.  I intended sweeping up the pellets but didn’t get around to doing it.  Anyway, this morning the little pile of pellets had definitely shrunk.  Someone has been eating it.

There are three possibilities.  

1.  The birds have discovered that it is edible (unlikely because I think it was eaten during the night).

2. Number 2 Ratty has decided to eat Spike’s Dinner instead of stealing the sunflower seeds.  Maybe I should explain.  We had what is locally known as a longtail living under a piece of plywood underneath the bird feeder during winter.  We called her “our friend out the back” or Ratty.  She was joined a couple of months ago by “small Ratty” or Number 2 Ratty and I decided that they needed to be discouraged in case they multiplied.  I replaced the plywood with some paving slabs.  Sadly our original Ratty developed health problems.  She lost patches of fur and one day I found her under the tree - obviously seriously ill (possibly someone living nearby has been putting out poison).  I gently herded her towards the stone wall until she climbed in between the stones - safe from trespassing cats.  She hasn’t been seen since.  Number 2 Ratty is still around and is very athletic.  He (or maybe she . . .  we do need a singular gender neutral pronoun in English apart from it) climbs up the bird feeding station pole and eats sunflower seeds out of the mesh bowl. 

He,she or it is quite bold and won’t run away unless I threaten him, her or it with a bamboo cane.  Maybe we don’t need a new pronoun for these genderfluid times.  We could just change the rules to allow it to be used for animate beings when gender is unknown.

3. This is my favourite possibility.  Just maybe the hedgehog food has been discovered by a hedgehog.  I have noticed a cluster of hedgehog droppings near the azalea mollis so there must be a regular visitor to the garden.  I think I will put out a small bowl of pellets tonight and see what happens.

After shopping and morning tea we walked in Brookdale plantation.  We have decided to restrict our walks to the glen until the end of TT because we don’t want to be mowed down by speeding bikes on Lezayre Road.  So this is where we will be walking for the next two weeks.

That is a photo of an aerial photo of the glen which was taken some years ago - before the service reservoir was built in the field in the bottom left corner.  We bought a framed copy and I tried hard to eliminate reflections on the glass but wasn’t completely successful.  We also have an aerial photo of the garden, taken on the same day but it isn’t very flattering because the photographs date back to a hot, dry summer and all you can see, apart from trees and the roof, are patches of dead grass in the lawn.

There are a lot of TT enthusiasts on the Island but others hate it and take their annual holiday to coincide with the festival so that they can escape the bikes.  The majority of the population, like us, probably have mixed feelings.  We enjoy the air of excitement but tend to batten down the hatches and emerge from the glen as seldom as possible. Fortunately most of the biking fans are not early risers and we can nip out to the shops while they are sleeping off the excesses of the night before.

There was a worrying silence from the Mountain Road while we were up in the plantation so I checked the Isle of Man Constabulary media page on Facebook when we returned home.  It was nothing to worry about -  just a broken down car and an oil spill.

We only walked as far as the view site - about two thirds of the way up to the top gate.  It was rather hot and there was cricket and motor racing on TV.

The track was littered with these featherlight little things which had obviously fallen from the conifers.  I had seen them before but hadn’t given them a thought - assuming they were something to do with the pollen-bearing cones which are a similar colour.

Then I looked closely at a small conifer by the side of the track and their purpose became clear.  They are the leaf sheaths from the Sitka spruce.  They  protect the new leaf buds and are discarded as the needles develop.

Apart from the apricot coloured azalea mollis, most  members of the rhododendron family in my garden are not looking very healthy.  The one with pink buds, which fade to cream when the flowers open, is looking decidedly sick.  I am not sure whether it has been affected by honey fungus or by alkalis leaching out of the concrete and mortar in the retaining wall nearby - or a combination of both.  The leaves are small and anaemic.  One branch died last year and I won’t be surprised if the whole plant dies soon.  But where there is life there is hope and it still produces a few flowers.

The large crimson rhododendron near the gate is flowering well but its leaves aren’t a good healthy dark green.  I think it may be getting too much water.  It grows near the ditch and we have had two successive very wet autumns and winters.

This old plant has the same problem as it grows even closer to the ditch and the fact that it was almost uprooted in the winter gales over a year ago added to its tale of woe.  I cut back all the heavy branches to help stabilise it but the remaining growth hasn’t thickened out as I hoped. The few flowers are very pretty though.

In the evening I put out a bowl of hedgehog food  but the only thing to show any interest was a trespassing cat.  It jumped up into the “bird area” and sniffed the food but wasn’t hungry enough to eat any before I chased it away.   A Number 4 possibility has been added to the list.

Monday.  This morning the food in the bowl remained uneaten but the scattering of pellets on the ground has diminished again.  Very mysterious.

It is another glorious day, warm and sunny.  I took a few photos in the back garden.  First the Pieris which is changing colour fast.  The new leaves change from bright red to pink, to cream and finally to green.  This is how it looked this morning . . .

. . . and this is what one of the new shoots looked like ten days ago.  A reminder that beauty, like glory, is fleeting. The new leaves brighten up the garden but I value the plant more for the little white flowers that open early in spring and provide nectar for the bumblebees when they emerge from hibernation.

The beauty of trees lasts longer.  There are two large oaks in the plantation above our property.  One looks very old and has lost a couple of big branches over recent years.  The younger one overhangs our top boundary - and we can look up at its bright green new leaves above the row of  holly trees, remnants of an old hedge. As someone commented on the Isle of Man Constabulary Facebook page "It is a stunning day".

24 and 25 May

Another hedgehog!

Thursday 26th May, 2016

On Tuesday afternoon we returned to Brookdale with the intention of walking all the way up to the top gate and this time we achieved our goal.  It is a steep walk and was hot in the sun but pleasant in the shade.  I checked the gradient using the gmap-pedometer site discovered that our route climbs from about 150 feet above sea level outside our gate to over a thousand feet at the top gate into the plantation.  A climb of nearly 900 feet.  I don’t think we have walked all the way to the top since the heather was flowering last year - at the beginning of September.

I stopped near the top to take a photo of the flowering bilberry plants on the bank by the track . . .

. . .  and this new sign near the top gate.

While we were reading about the mountain bike routes through the “Brookdale Forest” a superfit mountain biker arrived at the gate. He had ridden up via the Mountain Road from Ramsey.   We had a short, confusing conversation about blogs and bike routes before he set off down the forestry track.  Most conversations that involve me are confusing nowadays.  It is my fault.  My hearing has deteriorated, I have no talent for using hearing aids, can’t lipread and I hate asking people to repeat something.  So I just  try to guess the bits of the conversation that I don’t hear - or smile and nod..  I have thought about wearing a warning badge.  It could say something like “I am not deliberately rude . . . or mad . . . just deaf”.  But the bit about not being mad may not be strictly true.

On the way home we enjoyed the bluebells for a second time.

As we walked down the Fern Glen road I saw a little hedgehog lying at the edge of the tar near an old stone wall.  It didn’t have any obvious injuries but something was wrong.  It shouldn’t have been out during the day.  I thought it might be traumatised or dehydrated.  Also hedgehogs are notorious for their lack of traffic sense - so we thought the best thing would be to take it home and release it up at the top of our garden where we saw another hedgehog last week.

We weren’t sure how to handle it but Tim suggested using my old sunhat as protection from the prickles.

I put “Spike” (which seemed to be the obvious nickname for a hedgehog) down near the ditch which still has a trickle of water running down it, in case he was thirsty.  He didn’t move which worried me and I wondered whether he was under-nourished.  

I tipped him gently off the hat and went inside to consult Tim.  Tim  asked me what hedgehogs ate and I went back outside to dig up an earthworm to see if that would appeal to Spike.  But when I arrived at the spot where I left him, he had gone.  I was delighted that he was obviously well enough to walk around.  Later we saw him moving through the plants under the hawthorns and thought that might be the end of the hedgehog saga.

But on Wednesday morning, when I walked into the living room at about half past six, the first thing I saw was a rolled up pin-cushion in the middle of the front lawn.  

I read up about hedgehog behaviour and rescue on the internet and found out that (a) they are usually in trouble if you see them during the day and (b) they are highly likely to be suffering from hypothermia.  It was a cold morning so, as advised, I brought the hedgehog inside.  He appeared to be fast asleep with his paws neatly folded and his nose tucked in.

I filled two bottles with warm water.  Then I settled the hedgehog on a towel between the water bottles and covered it with another towel.  

When the pet shop opened at nine thirty, we drove to Ramsey to ask for advice about feeding hedgehogs.  We returned with a bag of moist pellets aptly named “Spike’s Dinner” and moved the hedgehog from the laundry basket to a large cardboard box with enough room for food and water bowls.  

After a while he moved around a bit but he was rather wobbly and didn’t seem interested in the food or water.  I tried offering him a small slug and a couple of earthworms but he just ignored them.  By lunchtime I was getting really concerned.  I was prepared to do my best for the little creature but was worried that my best wouldn’t be good enough and that he needed help from a more experienced person.

Back on the internet, I found a phone number for a lady in Peel who looks after hedgehogs.  She was out at work but I spoke to her husband and arranged to drive Spike down to Peel and leave him in their expert care.

Last photo of Spike - before leaving for the hedgehog hospital.

Having devoted most of the day to worrying about hedgehogs we decided to rest when we got back from Peel.  It was a rather cold windy day anyway - not ideal for walking.

This morning I found an email from the “Hedgehog lady” in my Inbox.  It had arrived the previous night.  She wrote “Thank you very much for bringing the hedgehog over . . . He’s now conscious, and eating, trying to get out of his cage as I write - (he is a little  boy by the way).

He’s still not out of the woods I’m afraid, and frequently I find they tend to rally a bit when they first come in only to go downhill again and die within a few days, but where there’s life there’s hope so we’ll keep everything crossed for him. He’s certainly got an upset tum so I’ll test a faecal sample and see if he needs worming – that may just do the trick.”

We can’t expect miracles but I am certain that her expertise will give poor little Spike the best possible chance of survival.