Winter roundup and signs of Spring

Weather wise, winter 2016/17 was fairly typical, with mostly average temperatures throughout. The feeders have remained fairly active until just recently as we now move in to the breeding season, with temperatures on the rise (though still mostly average at 10-12°). We have certainly experienced more frosts than in recent winters, though the only snow (although nothing to shout about) arrived in January. Unlike winter 2015/16, the daffodils started emerging just on time and have been in bloom in Feb and March, rather than December!

The biggest disappointment has been the shortage of winter visitors. Apart from redwings and fieldfares, which were in good numbers early on in the winter feeding on the yew trees, we have had little else to shout about. One brambling sighting in november, no redpolls and our first siskins of the year arrived in very late February. There had been 1 male and 1 female siskin until this morning when 2 females were present, though no sign of the male. Hopefully they may stay on and breed this year.

There has been lots of 'flirting' and territorial behaviour, with even some early breeders already on eggs (as per local reports). In the garden at home, a robin is nest building in a coniferous shrub out the front. At feathers there is no evidence of any tits taking up residency in our nest boxes but there may still be time.

With spells of warmer weather in the past couple of weeks, a few butterflies have been spotted here including brimstone, small tortoiseshell and peacock.

In time for summer, I completed a new insect hotel to place on the shop wall next to the lavender. This latest design is 1.2m tall and features a terraced nest box (ideal for roosting in this case), drilled wood for the solitary bees, a lacewing house, butterfly house and other bits and bobs for sheltering insects.

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:

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: