Easter holidays begin

Lots more achieved in the last week - both pond beds are now done (and mucked, courtesy of three trips - count them! - to Lady Muck's horse paddock) and planted up with all kinds of goodies. Even more impressively, the veg bed is fenced (although not yet quite finished), and everything is burgeoning.

Pond looking great....

...and house looking great in the pond!

Dungtastic

Veg bed ready to go - almost!

More recent moth trapping has turned up Early Tooth-striped and Twin-spot Quaker plus lots of commoner early spring species. Comma, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell and Hummingbird Hawk-moth (!) have all put in daytime appearances.

Spring - new arrivals!

The most exciting news of the lot this weekend was the unexpected arrival (and not only to us but to the owner, Chris!) of a beautiful foal in the field. She must have been born on Friday night or Saturday morning, and she's now gambolling about happily, well looked after by her experienced mother. She already has a name (not given by us!) - Spice. So welcome to the world, adorable creature.

Awwww!

Spring is well and truly sprung now - Chiffchaffs are singing everywhere, trees are bursting forth (not the birches or oaks, mind you!), the hedge is growing happily, Brimstones, Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshells are on the wing and there were even Pipistrelle and Noctule Bats hunting this evening, the first day of BST.

New species for the garden have come thick and fast too - a long-overdue singing Goldcrest last week, and an unseen calling Redshank today - we're now on a scarcely believable 95 species. Moth-wise, a good trap in mild conditions produced several lifers among garden ticks - see some photos below, plus Clouded Drab, Brindled Pug and Diurnea fagella, a micro, of which interestingly Portland had only their second ever record today as well.

Pine Beauty

Oak Beauty

Engrailed

Early Grey

Fionnbharr has also been keenly helping - in this case hunting moles.....

More pondtastica

Well, here's the documentary evidence - pond complete, and even with a few plants in it!

One empty pond, and a load of bags with aquatics
and marginals from Winchester.

A superb view of the artistic logpile constructed by SKW, plus some dogwoods

Julia ritually lobs the first handful of oxygenator in!

Planted with Purple Loosetrife, Yellow Flag, Marsh Marigold and others.
Note also the crocodile-impersonating tethered alder log....

And in the bed on the left of the pond, we've planted a load of stuff - including one of our two Witchhazels (bugger off, rabbits and deer....), Euphorbias, Arum italicum, Acer palmatum etc.

This has been a "hard work" half-term, and we both ache significantly - but some big jobs which had been looming are DONE, and it's not even March yet. Result.

More action - of various kinds

Lots of change this week - and lots of VERY hard work!

The pond is now "finished", in the sense that the edges are all tucked under and covered, and we can now think about doing a spot of planting! And the bed on the left hand side is dug over and ready to go, too.

The ornamental cherries are all down to ground level (high masculinity points with the chainsaw for Simon - including getting the chain resharpened, refitting the chain, AND not cutting any limbs off), and either chopped for firelogs, stacked (brash) in a new dead hedge down the end of the garden, or making up part of the new amphibian logpile by the pond. We'll get Olly to grind out the stumps when the ground is a bit drier.

Less directly to our credit, but still a major watershed moment (as it were) was the emptying of the cesspits! Ugh! A whole new world of horror and subterranean disgust....but the good news is that all was functioning as it should, and we probably won't need to get it done for another two years at least. Excellent....

If it was ever going to happen.....

....it really had to be this year. With the biggest and most widespread Waxwing invasion for decades, and perhaps ever, we have been hoping against hope that we'd get a fly-over or two (at least) in the garden this winter. We've been ramping down expectations now spring is almost here - BUT this morning "a sibilant peal of silver bells" came tinkling down from the poplars, and there were 18 of the little beauties feeding on our clump of Mistletoe! Result!

How Bohemian can you get?

Hedgetastic!

Yes! We've been waiting all winter for this past week - and now it's all done - well, almost....

Last Friday, a vast delivery arrived from Landford Trees (Salisbury), and last Saturday a big cultivating machine arrived from Brandon Hire. Straight after canvas on Saturday, we drove down, and with the lengthening evenings (yippee!) we were able to get the entire hedge line along the western border rotavated - still quite waterlogged and claggy in paces, mind you!

Sunday morning was given over to tree planting - 10 big bare-rooted trees safely in the ground - Sorbus, Malus, Liquidambar, Amelanchier canadensis, Acer griseum and Euonymus europaeus all in and raring to go - fantastic.

One of the trees, done

With the homeowners already aching, the afternoon was given over to the first tranche of hedging - about 130 plants per 25m - Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Guelder Rose, Dog Rose, Hazel, Dogwood, Crab Apple, Holly, Lonicera nitida, Field Maple, Alder Buckthorn and Spindle. Really hard work, but we got the 25m done!

Skipping the very stony bit which we'll come back to later (!), we did another 25m on Thursday afternoon, then another on Friday afternoon (exeat - another yippee!), and the last bit on Saturday morning. Done! 100m of hedging in and growing - already the buds are bursting and life is showing. Spring! (Or possibly outrageous optimism....)

At about the half way point!

Even Elli the Cat gives her seal of approval

In other news, a massive bonfire was had to say goodbye to the winter (more optimism), Snowdrops are up in the garden, we are getting regular visits from two Foxes, there have been heavy sightings of Goosander overhead, plus more Herons than usual, Little Egret and Snipe - only our second of the last.

Bonfirus maximus

On the Reserve, recent sightings have included Bittern, Smew and (presumably the same) redhead Red-breasted Merganser. Brambling numbers are holding up in both garden and further afield, and we have had a Redpoll or two - but not as many as last winter.

Still (third time - getting the message?) - WINTER IS DRAWING TO A CLOSE!

An overdue garden addition.....

Four Ravens were croaking, flapping about and tumbling over the garden this morning - we really should have seen one before now, but we haven't, so that's 91, and the first new garden species for 2011.

And I (Simon) finally managed to see the Bittern at Ivy North Hide today - in a ridiculous scrum of Bank Holiday punters. Also a 1st winter drake Smew on Rockford Lake.

2011 arrives - and so do more birds

Not so much in the garden now all the snow has melted, although we still have plenty of Bramblings, but still more action on the reserve in recent days.

While we've still not managed to see the Bittern on Ivy Lake (mainly as a result of not wanting to do battle with the mobs of visitors!), there have been other goodies - a (or the?) redhead Smew for a couple of days on Ibsley Water, a different (juvenile) Iceland Gull the last two nights in the roost, three Red-crested Pochards, and even a Black Swan flying over this evening!

Iceland Gull juv - photo courtesy Alan Hayden

Yellow-legged and Lesser Black-backed Gulls - photo courtesy Alan Hayden

But I have saved my very own Red-breasted Merganser until last - here's a photo to add to the "appalling record shots" collection.....

Haw haw haw! [er...ho]

Yet another new species for the garden today! We arrived back from having seen almost nothing on the reserve, and there were two Hawfinches perched high in the trees on the east side of the garden - result. Also today, the Brambling record was well and truly smashed - 42 feeding on the lawn.

Coldest yet

It was SOOOOO cold yesterday morning - maximum of -9 degrees. Ouch. The early thrushes actually had hoar frost visible on their tail feathers.

The big wildlife news was actually on the reserve today, however. Five successive bitterly cold nights at the Lapwing Hide (punctuated only by a temporary scare with a Goosander which showed some featrues of Common Merganser) finally did the business - not one but TWO Blashfrd ticks. The minor one was a redhead Red-breasted Merganser in with the very distant Goosanders on the only open bit of water in the middle of the lake. But the major one was a new species for the reserve - a superb LONG-EARED OWL flew in from the left, perched briefly on the post in front of the hide, and then vanished into the darkness! Below is the world's worst photo of any bird. Clearly, all the necessary ID features are there for you to enjoy.....