Hi Nic
Blackbirds are intermittently appearing but extremely tatty so I guess they’re still moulting here. Mucho sparrows & starlings – the latter mostly wearing their winter chain mail. I’ve managed to deter most of the pigeons by feeding later in the morning, the 30+ is down to a max of 10, usually nearer 6. 2 of them follow me up the path like chickens.
Hedgehogs visiting messily, poo everywhere & pee too in feeders. I’ve relocated the nest box under evergreen shrubs as I mistakenly had it half under deciduous last winter forgetting the leaves would fall off! Set up twigs in the doorway for a few nights to ensure nobody was going in or out then cleaned it out, scoured with boiling water to remove any tick eggs that might be hiding (after removing to safety many spiders, centipedes etc) & refilled with a fresh supply of hay. I’ll put some hay in a bucket on its side next to it so anybody who wants to make their own arrangements can.
So funny you find hogs in the feeders, I’ve only found one once who’d gone in before I put the food in one evening. I politely explained if he’d like to go in the entrance tunnel to give me space to put the food in he’d be welcome to eat it & he obligingly did.
I sat out the back last week one evening watching bats swooping back & forth round the houses & one came in the garden & did a circuit which included just above my head under the single storey guttering, almost felt it pass! The bat detector went mad with sound as it came close.
An English lavender plant I found abandoned a couple of years ago while litter picking & planted in my garden was absolutely covered in flowers & subsequently bees & all sorts of pollinators this summer, hugely successful rescue & must have fed unbelievable numbers of little creatures. I’ll pick some of the now finished flowers to dry but the rest can stay on to provide shelter over winter. The end of summer but autumn I love as everything hunkers down for winter to sleep before a new year begins.
