Photos from September

It's fair to say August and September were rather wet months, with warm, sunny spells thrown in on the odd occasion. This has meant the feeders have been relatively busy for what is normally a quiet time of year, but still just the usual visitors. I know there are Siskins around as they often fly over but we're still yet to see them in the Nature Area this year! Outside the shop, the Grey Wagtail has been visiting, the Green Woodpecker is visiting the farmhouse lawn in search of ants and the Treecreeper is flocking with a group of regular Goldcrests.

Our latest 'What's On' advert:

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Macmillan Coffee Morning at Feathers, Salehurst

This year at Feathers we took part in the World's Biggest Coffee Morning, to try and raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. The Insect Houses I had been making were put in to a Silent Auction, where the highest 3 bidders each received one. We also did a 'Cuddle for a quid', 'Spot the Cake', a Card Quiz and of course a lot of coffee and cake consumption, in total raising over £400. Here are a few pictures from the day:

Signs of September

On the 6th September last year we photographed a pair of Grey Wagtails on the barn roof, so I mentioned it would be worth keeping an eye out. Yesterday I saw a Wagtail flying over and going by the call it was definitely not a Pied, so I presumed it was the Grey - and today we confirmed the sighting. Obviously it's the time of the year when the Grey Wagtail appears so we will hopefully have the opportunity to photograph one in the coming weeks.

Another visitor which is not common at other times of year but has been regular in the past week or two is the Coal Tit, both outside the shop and in the Nature Area.

We've seen a Raven on a few occasions recently, including today as one was being pestered by a pair of Buzzards. A Hobby graced the skies above work a couple of times this week too, again at a very similar time to when we saw one last year.

There's still dozens of House Martins here, it will be interesting to see how long they hold on for as the 'Salehurst' Swifts have been gone for over a month now.

Building a Insect House from Pallets

In July last year we undertook a project to build a bug tower/insect hotel out of old pallets. We normally have a couple of pallets of bird food delivered each week to the shop so it seemed a good use for the old pallets. We found a suitable spot in our Nature Area and stacked and stuffed the pallets with fairly well anything we could find; old tiles, logs, pinecones, bamboo canes, hanging baskets and a few old small bug boxes we had. It was good fun building it and hopefully beneficial to many insects, a Leaf-cutter Bee was in fact bringing in leaves while I was putting it together!

This summer, before our Owl Display, I made a couple of planters out of old pallets to brighten up the area outside the shop. With plenty of offcuts left over from those, I thought I'd have another go at building an insect house, but this time to go on the wall above the planters. I made a rough plan, essentially a 50cm square, just the depth of a pallet plank, with a pitched roof on top. I've never been a DIY minded person, so the result is not perfect, but it still looks great on the wall and hopefully, like the tower in the Nature Area, will provide more shelter for bees and bugs. Here it is in situ: