A third garden patch tick for Mum's garden this week.......

After all the excitement on Wednesday of finding a Grass Snake in Mum's garden, yesterday afternoon I was back there with a plan. I'd discovered Hissing Sid was actually a Hissing Cynthia (ie the snake was a female, not a male), so as Mum has a compost bin at the bottom of the garden, I had started wondering if our Cynthia had maybe come from there and maybe, just maybe, laid eggs or even already have some youngsters in the bin. Well in theory, my plan sounded great. I'd don some gloves and root through the bin. However I didn't account for the hot weather yesterday. After taking the lid off, removing the top layer of un-composted garden and kitchen waste, I was almost overcome with an almighty stench. The next layer hadn't quite reached that sweet smelling pure compost smell yet. After a few more minutes I decided to give up. Mum has since had a better idea. On Monday we will lift the bottom sliding door on the bin, and have a better look that way.

 

So what to do now I didn't have a compost bin to play with ? Well ever since I was a child and my paternal Grandparents lived in the house, there's been a brute of a Forsythia growing right by the fence that separates the end of the garden from the horse field. Along side it, is a brute of a Buddlia that Mum planted many years ago. Neither had flowered this year and both needed well over due grooming. So that's how I spent my afternoon. Lopping. And loving it. I love lopping.

 

In the evening, after we had both watched the last episodes of Springwatch and Unsprung, I was back outside taking photos of the incredibly bright full moon we had, amid frantically feeding and flying bats. Apparently we will get a similar moon tonight, and it's quite a rare occurrence. The last recorded full 'Rose' moon was back in 1919. My photo really doesn't do it justice. I had to use manual focus, and couldn't quite capture the extraordinary yellow-orange-pink brightness that it was.

 

 

This morning I was up very early and in my little hide by 6.30am. Mum had yet another restless night, so after making her a cuppa and making sure she had taken her tablets, I left her to snooze. Although there is nothing I can do when Mum is in pain, I think her symptoms have sub-conscientiously sunken into me. I had heard her moving around many times during the night, and after seeing her having a particularly painful 'episode' yesterday afternoon, I also didn't get much sleep as I seemed to be waiting for that 'noise' during the night that would tell me that my Mum was again, in a lot of pain. Thankfully that didn't happen, but at a rough guess I reckon both Mum and I slept no longer than three hours last night.

 

I had no plan on what I wanted to photograph today, except maybe to prove that there is more than one juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker now visiting the garden. But as the morning went on, and the garden birds became even more used to my hide, a new theme started to emerge.

 Adult birds feeding the juveniles.

 

Our very own resident Blackbird family started the trend. I'm pretty sure two of the three fledglings have now moved on to the neighbours gardens, and to hopefully set up territories of their own. But one fledgling still remains. And it's Mr BB that's attending to it. Mrs BB was nowhere to be seen........until about 9am when I followed Mr BB flying to a neighbours roof and watched him mate with a female Blackbird. I couldn't get a photo, and I cannot say for sure that the female is our own Mrs BB. She has no distinguishing marks that make her stand out, unlike Mr BB who has the male equivalent of a scruffy grey haired chest and so is easily recognised around the garden. We have left the old nest in situ, and Mum has twice accidentally spooked a Blackbird from around the nest area within the last two days. But Blackbirds, although they happily raise a second, and occasionally third, brood, don't always use the same nest site. So Marks Mansion Springwatch will continue.....

 

Back to today. Our last fledgling is looking almost grown up now........

 

 

But still needs 'Daddy' to feed it......

 

The Blue Tits are still feeding one or two of their youngsters.....

 

But I did notice that once the adult left, one of the youngsters was more than capable of feeding itself....

 

 

Although I had wished for the obliging Great Spotted Woodpeckers to appear, and they duly did, I really wanted to get a photo of more than one of them in the same frame. But no, they weren't that obliging, which has led me to think that these two juveniles are not from the same family. The one below favours the peanut feeder at the bottom of the garden......

 

 

Our second juvenile below, who looks a little younger if you look closely at it's newer fluffier white chest feathers, favours the feeder further up the garden......... 

 

and the only photo I got to prove there are TWO juveniles visiting the garden, is this one below.

You can see number 1 with its back to us and it's red 'cap' at the front of the head that marks it as a juvenile, and just behind the bottom fat ball you can see number 2, also with the red 'cap'. And they are NOT comfortable with each other at all.

 

 

A few days ago I had proclaimed one of the juveniles was Bill's offspring, as Bill was happily letting it feed whilst in his presence. This morning, just moments after photographing number 2 juvenile on the second peanut feeder, another male came down, and this time it was our Ben, the 'perfect' male GSW with the equally long upper and lower mandibles (sorry for the tech talk, this means both the upper and lower 'beak' are of the same length - Bill has a very noticeable protruding lower beak, and Bob has a very much noticeable protruding upper beak - Ben has both upper and lower beaks of the same size). And here is Ben below. A not very good photo as he was in the shade and I had to 'lighten' the photo for presentation, but whilst he was feeding on our third peanut feeder, the juvenile on the second feeder was still present. Which is why I think we now have both Bills and Bens offspring visiting the garden.......

 

 

So, in effect, I had captured what I set out to photograph today. But to add to the theme 'Adults feeding juveniles', I needed just one more bird to complete it. The Robins.

We haven't been lucky enough to have a Robins nest in the garden this year (yet), but over the last few weeks of blogging from Mum's garden, I was lucky enough to watch, and occasionally photograph, the juvenile Robins that made their way from June and Terrys garden (Mum's next door neighbours, who incidentally have known me all of my life thanks to my Nan previously having lived where Mum now presides) down to the bottom of Mum's garden. I watched the first brood learn how to feed and fly and move on. And now we have a fledgling from a second brood. But it appears, only the one. And as it kept me so amused today, I have to name it. So introducing my new favourite garden bird, Bobbin the juvenile Robin.........

 

Whilst in my hide this morning, I kept 'feeling' something landing on top of the hide dome. After I'd popped inside to make a coffee and was making my way back to the bottom of the garden, I spotted Bobbin perched on the top of my hide. Of course my camera was inside it !!

 Bobbin seems to have accepted my hide so well, that on several occasions I couldn't even photograph him/her as it had settled happily on a certain branch, or on the floor, or on the chairs, which were all so close to me ensconced in my little camouflage, that my meagre zoom 75-300 lens was actually too near. To get the photos, both above and below, I had to lean right back into my hide and keep my fingers (and focus) crossed.......

 

 

And there was no stopping Bobbin. It was popping up everywhere......

The rockery was a favoured place.....

 

 

as was the top of Mum's leaf bin.....

 

and one of the forsythia branches that I had 'lopped' yesterday afternoon, but hadn't yet cleared away.....

 

 

Bobbin was popping up everywhere. I lost an hour of my life today, one that I will never get back, just trying to determine if Bobbin is more than one juvenile Robin. And my findings determine that he/she is definitely the same bird......and it doesn't give a damn about my hide.

 

Mum and I decided that as Bobbin is so laid back, that we might be able to tempt this little juvenile to a bit of hand feeding, starting off with some training by leaving some carefully chosen and placed food within the garden boundaries. Well, that didn't go down well. Our selectively placed dried meal worms were looked upon with great disdain by Bobbin.......

 

 

and he/she didn't even attempt to eat them.

Maybe on Monday, after I've been rooting through the compost bin, our Bobbin might find something tastier.

 

But briefly back to the other garden birds. I spotted and photographed this young Greenfinch...

 

 

It didn't look particularly well, and after following its progress up the garden, I eventually lost sight of it. The far wing seemed to be 'hanging' a bit, and sadly I've not seen the little lovely since.

 

So finally on to the title of todays blog post. A third garden patch tick for Mum.

To enable you readers to understand my hides positioning, the layout of Mum's beautiful back garden, and therefore the location of the third garden patch tick, here are a few facts.

 

Mum's house was once home to my Dad's parents. It has always backed on to a field where horses graze, and which in turn backs on to part of the Grand Union Canal. In some ruling, probably made many many years ago, the field has been declared as being never ever to be sold for housing development. Mum was telling me today that Maylings Transport yard, which is based at the top of the field I need to describe, was actually once a farm.

Therefore, the view from Mum's house, especially from her bedroom window, has been green and quite frankly, glorious.

I can remember as a child, feeding the horses at the bottom of Nan's garden, and watching the House Martins nest in the eaves opposite her house. As I grew older and often stayed with my Nan during my teenage years (as many of my teenage cousins did), her neighbours would pop in for a chat and a cuppa and to get their hair 'set', and the surviving neighbours still remember me now.

It also helped that my Mum's parents also came from the same village, so in my much younger days when I was out with my Nan Owen (my Mum's mum), we would often bump into mutual friends of my Nan Marks (my Dad's mum). The village was a proper village in those days. I could walk along the High Street and be greeted by old ladies who knew my name. But I never who they were. I was a product of two Harefield old school families. Everyone knew everyone. It was a lovely place to be. I was very close to both of my Nans, but especially to my Nanny Owen and to Albie, who was my maternal Grandad but who refused to be called 'Grandad' as he felt it made him sound old ! My Albie passed away in September 1992, just nine months after my daughter had died after a traumatic birth. 

I was nine years old when my Grandad Marks died. I was 22 when my Albie, and my daughter, died. So Harefield is a very special place to me. My Grandparents, Great Grandparents, Great-great Grandparents, and my daughter, and my cousin, are all buried at St Marys near the village. So in a nutshell, where my Mum now lives, is very special to me....

 

From the bottom of the garden yesterday morning, you wouldn't have seen this.....

 

 

By 'lopping' the Forsythia and Buddlia, I opened up a new 'window'. This was the view from my childhood when Nan Marks would make me cheese on toast with a cup of tea. I'm still to convince Mum to let me loose on the roses to the left of the photo above. Give me time..........

 

Below is a Google map of the area. Before I go on, I must thank Nathalie, Mark W and Xtine, plus others, for confirming they could see what I could see.....

This is where Mum's house is, and just might help when I try to describe what happened this morning.

 

On the far right middle of this map (thanks Nathalie), is a house with a small rectangle of 'white'. That is the roof of Mums conservatory. It's the area that I'm trying to describe. From the bottom of Mum's very well established garden, there is a field. That field stretchers across to the Grand Union Canal.

 

 

link to Google maps of Mum's road and the field

 

As long as I've known it (and I'm no spring chicken), this field at the bottom of the garden, has been grazed by horses. Recently, two mares and a foal are the occcupants. But are they........?

 

 

The lively foal above was playing with its Mums tail when I caught this photo this morning.

 

But as I sat in my hide later, I became aware of a munching noise that was far louder than the horses eating, or the snake moving, or the rats feeding. There was something else at the bottom of Mum's garden........

 

It was something bigger than a fox but smaller than the foal. From my hide I could just see a well hidden head, and the back. Description wise, I was seeing something that was equal to the size of a large dog, and after partially lifting the hood of my hide, I froze when I realised it was a male Muntjac deer. It had been feeding on the nettles and the Forsythia lopped branches that I had chucked  over the fence last night. There was sadly no going back, the deer had spotted me at the same time and was already hurrying back to some cover.....

 

 

Despite a 30 minute stake out after we had seen it moving around, I still didn't get a decent photo. But what a great sighting. When I was in my hide I was about five feet away from it, but all I could see was his head bowing down for more grub, and that sighting was through the bottom of Mum's mesh garden boundary.

 

 

Tonight instead of a dog being my 'last but not least', here is a pic of Mum's latest botanical brilliance. This is a species 'allium'. I don't dare guess the name, but it's certainly very stunning.