Badgers

October - What’s that bird?

A surprise visitor (no, not Tim and Jane waving at a camera this time), and another bird heard on trail camera footage and not previously seen or heard on Liddells, prompted an idea for this and the next few blog posts. The trail camera clips often feature bird song. Below are two such clips. Your challenge is to identify the bird. Answers at the end of this post. As always, you will need to access the clips through the website. Go to www.liddells.co.uk and click on Blog to bring up the post.

3rd October

The Big Pond is a temporary resting place for all the Willow whips John pruned from a neighbour’s tree. Clare spotted a hoverfly nearby. She identified it as a Sun fly Helophilus pendulus; the scientific name means ‘dangling marsh lover’, while the ‘Sun’ is quite possibly from a misreading of '‘Helo-’ as ‘Helio-’. The insect’s stripy thorax has led to an alternative name ‘The Footballer’ although Clare has been unable to identify from which team; she thinks the black and yellow stripes look like a Regency waistcoat but then she is not a fan of football. (Stop Press: John says Borussia Dortmund play in black and yellow stripes.)

5th October

John mowed the paths for the final time this year.

6th October

John replaced the leaking roof sheet on the hide. He and Clare watched Long-tailed tits, Chiffchaff and Tree sparrows on or around the feeders and then saw Redwings and Fieldfares fly over the Wetland.

Clare wondered about beginning her annual attempt to learn more about fungi and was fairly confident she had found some Boletes near the Big Pond however, although believing she was correct in this instance, the following paragraph on wildfooduk.com has dampened her already moist enthusiasm. ‘A common and easy to identify family of mushrooms, the Boletus family is a large genus of mushrooms which until recently was split into a few smaller families, the main three being; Boletus, Leccinum, and Suillus. With the genome of mushrooms now being sequenced the family has been split much more with the scientific names changing regularly, this can lead to confusion with identification so for the purposes of foraging we consider any mushroom with a stem and pores instead of gills a Bolete.’

Fly agaric, however, are always attractive to look at although not to eat unless you are a roe deer. The trail camera on the Crag captured the doe and triplets having a Fly agaric picnic. (The sharp-eyed amongst you may query the date on the clip - the date needed altering after battery replacement.) There were several clips over a few days, of the deer returning as more of the fungi emerged.

Footage from the Scrub shows two of the kids, one couching while the other forages. While John and Clare often find places where the deer have obviously been couching, it is unusual to see them doing so. The posture and word ‘couching’ echoe the heraldic use of ‘couchant’ to describe an animal represented as lying on its stomach with its hind legs and forelegs pointed forward.

8th October

John has stitched together a delightful sequence of the doe with a singleton engaged in mutual grooming. It is tempting to attach interpretations to this behaviour: cleaning, building relationship, teaching, because it is pleasurable, etc.. The truth is we don’t know why the animals do it, however they do it quite frequently.

9th October

Farmer John negotiated with John to put 55 Suffolk cross lambs onto the Hayfield to graze it down. John H failed to find out what they are cross about.

The wall collapse last month proved a job too far for John and Clare, however Farmer John recommended his waller Gavin, who tackled the breach in the Liddells wall today and made a beautiful job of the repair.

No kye in the corn, however this is a bonny morning photograph. For readers left bewildered by this last sentence, click here.

Before.

After. We think you will agree that this is an excellent repair.

10th October

Clare decided to face the stickiness and process the honey from the frames. The first task is to slice off the cappings (the wax covers sealing the honey in the cells). At this point the honey begins to drip out, so positioning the frames in the spinner quickly is important. Clare’s spinner takes three frames at a time; the frames need reversing after the first bout of spinning so that the honey is released from each side of the frame. After all the spinning the tap on the spinner is opened, the honey drips through a double sieve and into a bucket.

11th October

A jay captured on camera in the Scrub provides a glorious flash of its blue feathers as it flies off. Clare has a fondness for Radio 4 quiz programmes and was delighted that the most recent episode of Brain of Britain, which she listened to before working on this blog post, included the information that the Jay’s scientific name, Garrulus glandarius, means ‘talkative acorn eater’.

12th October

Footage from the Scrub camera shows one of the two older bucks (neither John nor Clare can be sure whether this is the oldest buck or the recently arrived mature buck), engaged in territorial defence. You can see the damage that can be wrought on young trees by this activity. John is pleased to have the footage as this period in October can be referred to as the ‘false rut’, which is believed to be due to the presence of doe kids. Bucks will mark their territory by scraping and rubbing their antlers and front hooves on vegetation and the ground to spread their scent. Later the same day, the murder buck investigates the site.

A close-up of a hare on the Crag shows how well it is camouflaged against grasses in autumn.

13th October

Hares always seem to bring a smile so here are two; they seem to synchronise as they go through the Scrub.

John and Clare have an ongoing task choosing and preparing planting sites ready for the new trees when they are delivered later this autumn. After putting in posts for 10 Alders not far from the hide, they decided to have a break watching the birds. There was quite a lot of bird song so Clare used Merlin for help. The first bird Merlin identified was a Bullfinch, which was in sight however Clare knew there was another call not attributable to the Bullfinch. Merlin offered some more identifications of which the first three fitted with the birds in sight, and then ‘Yellow-browed warbler'. Just as Clare said ‘I don’t think so!” she saw it. There was indeed a Yellow-browed warbler in the hawthorns in front of the hide. Clare immediately sent messages to Ruth the ringer, who said she would come up next morning, and to Keith, who said that these birds mostly turned up on the east coast on their migration from the Siberia taiga forests to south-east Asia. This RSPB webpage suggests the same.

14th October

Against all expectations, Ruth netted and ringed the warbler! She had put a short net up by the feeders. She was busier than she had expected to be, catching the first Chaffinch she had had on Liddells, two new Tree creepers, a couple of Chiffchaffs, several Blackbirds and some titmice.

The Yellow-browed warbler in all its tiny glory. It is similar in size to a Goldcresr.

Clare saw the warbler again each of the next three days before there was no further sight or sound of it around.

Meanwhile on the Crag a mouse moves at astonishing speed, then a badger ambles slowly past, apparently sniffing where the mouse has been.

18th October

A Sparrowhawk flies up onto a perch in the Scrub.

19th - 21st October

Some autumnal delights: a 7-spot ladybird rests on a stile post, a Bullfinch pauses while eating Hawthorn berries, a Red Admiral basks in the sun, the glory of one of the beeches on the Crag, the seeds of a Yellow flag iris show their autumnal beauty, and lichen.

Clare and John visited the John More Museum in Tewkesbury recently. John Moore (1907-1967) was a British author and naturalist who wrote about the English countryside and campaigned for its preservation. In one of his books, The Seasons of the Year, he wrote that October is the ‘hangover season in the countryside: no new flowers, and old ones already drooping, the bents brown along the hedgerows and no birds singing’. John and Clare are pleased to have provided evidence that there is some bird song in October and that in spite of the absence of new flowers, there is still colour to be seen.

23rd October

Going through the camera discs Clare heard a bird that she hadn’t heard before or seen on Liddells. She called on Merlin and a couple of other human listeners for confirmation and all agreed it is a Reed Bunting. Clare recognises this bird by thinking of it as an old-fashioned bailiff with black bowler hat, white collar and tweed jacket. See what you think. Ruth said the species is one she was expecting might be around. It is present in the UK all year.

26th - 28th October

John prepared more sites for new trees. Farmer John moved the sheep onto the Wildflower Meadow. He reckoned they would only take five days to graze it.

More mouse activity on the Crag - mountaineering this time.

30th October

As the young buck kid turns sideways in the clip below, you can see the ‘buttons,’ which are the start of antlers growing.

The answers to the bird quiz: in the first clip you can hear a Goldfinch, in the second a Magpie is chattering before a Carrion Crow calls at the end of the clip.

September - a quieter month

The usual reminder - to see the videos in all their glory, visit www.liddells.co.uk and click on Blog

2nd - 3rd September

John started making a new and wider gate and gateway for the North-east Strip. Should hay need to be moved into this area in future years, the new gate will accommodate a trailer, making the task a little easier.

Clare spent some time by the Big Pond and watched a female Common Darter ovipositing. The male Darter is clutching her while she does so. Then Clare noticed that there were five male Common Hawkers vying for the airspace over the pond and one was continually returning to a particular patch of Water Forget-me-nots; she heard a rustling and realised there was a female Common Hawker also ovipositing. Taking a video risked disturbing her, however Clare managed a photo. There were also scores of Emerald Damselflies around.

Clare noticed that the Water Figwort Scrophularia auriculata, is in flower. The flowers are pollinated by the Common wasp, although there have been far fewer wasps around this year. Clare was intrigued by the ‘Scrophulus’ part of the plant’s name. ‘Scrofulous’ is defined as meaning either, in a literal sense, relating to scrofula (tuberculosis (or TB like bacteria) of the lymph nodes, particularly of the neck); or, figuratively, morally contaminated and corrupt. Clare then discovered that the name "figwort" comes from the plant's early use to treat haemorrhoids, which were once known as "figs." Every Blog day a learning day.

John has sited a trail camera on the Hayfield as he has noticed the deer here quite often. The first video was a surprise.

The next video demonstrates why we have the phrase ‘haring about’.

4th September

Unusually, Clare’s annual attempts to photograph Hawkers on the wing using her phone camera proved successful. Only one shot, however the photo shows two male Common Hawkers - the equivalent of BOGOF in the dragonfly world.

You may be surprised, as were Clare and John, to learn that stoats will take a hare, a creature several times bigger than itself. The stoat will chase its prey and then pounce, delivering a powerful bite to the back of the neck. The camera seems to have captured part of the chase; the hare is in no doubt about the jeopardy.

The camera on the Hayfield does record some deer activity - a doe and two kids; you can hear the twang of the fence as the deer jump out off camera.

8th September

The sex of the triplets is much clearer now. Here they are in the Scrub. Looking from left to right you can see two doe kids, the mother doe and then the buck kid.

John was particularly interested to see the next clip and several like it - he says the received wisdom has been that deer do not like rain and are seldom seen out in it. The trail camera gives the lie to that particular understanding.

9th September

One of the two young bucks from last year has unbranched antlers - regular readers of this Blog will know bucks like this are called ‘murder bucks’ - is around in the Scrub. Then the camera reveals a new buck. This one has better developed antlers, although it is still smaller than the old buck which is still around. This new buck may have been drawn in because of the does in the territory.

10th September

John has long been interested in the number of different plants that deer will eat. Below is one of four clips that each show kids choosing Ash leaves over all the other forage in their path. The leaves look as if they are freshly fallen.

11th September

The doe with triplets is reluctant to let the buck kid suckle. She has probably conceived what will be next year’s kids in the rut, and even though delayed implantation means they are far off being born, she will be keen for this year’s kids to become more independent.

12th September

A sunny day, and it brought the pollinators out. The Michaelmas daisies on the Wildflower Meadow were covered in insects, including a couple of Speckled Wood butterflies. The activity demonstrates the value of late flowering forage plants.

The sunshine also brought out the dragonflies. Clare spotted a female Common Darter ovipositing, then noticed a pair of Common Hawkers flying past clamped together. They landed on the sunny waterside of a Hawthorn overhanging the Big Pond, however Clare managed to get close enough for a photograph. She is rather pleased with the result.

13th September

Early morning in the Scrub and a doe can be heard and seen (watch her flanks move) squeaking. (While John uses the word ‘feeping’ for the kids, he usually refers to the does’ calls as squeaking. They sound the same to Clare.) The old buck suddenly erupts from off stage and chases the doe away. He pauses in front of the camera and you can see why John considers this animal to be a magnificent specimen. You can also see signs of ageing round his face (the buck’s not John’s).

Another image of which Clare was pleased - this time Common Darters mating. Clare then noticed a couple of what she thinks are Southern Hawkers, had joined the Common Hawkers over the pond. Although not a wonderful photograph, Clare managed, with her phone camera, to capture another dragonfly in flight.

14th September

Although the videos are not included here (regular readers of this Blog will have seen more than enough footage of badgers’ backsides), Clare noticed that the Scrub trail camera had recorded several clips of a badger going past in the same direction. Two of these clips were only ten seconds apart, so there must be at least two badgers using the path. (The same phenomenon occurred two nights later, with only three seconds between the clips.)

15th September

John and Clare have been delighted that all the talks (John, Keith and Clare), the two Open Days and donations from supporters, have resulted in enough money to buy a lot more trees, hedging whips and wildflower plugs. Today they spent a happy morning putting in an order. The wildflower plants will arrive first although cannot be planted until the sheep have been and gone. The trees and hedging will arrive in the winter months as it is best to move and plant them while they are dormant.

16th September

Motivated by the tree and wildflower order, Clare and John set about sowing all the wildflower seeds Clare has been collecting at every available opportunity. There are seventeen different varieties in the trays. Any that take can be pinched out into small pots and sown as plugs either next autumn or potted on for planting out in spring 2026.

18th September

John noticed that there has been a substantial collapse of part of the south boundary wall. Fortunately there is no risk of local stock getting in or out at that point, however repairs will have to be made. There had been no bulging in the wall, which indicates a weak point, just here; possibly the increase in much heavier farm machinery may have caused sufficient vibration to bring about the collapse.

The old buck again, however Clare has chosen this video because you can clearly hear at least one Chiffchaff in the background. The birds are yet to leave for their wintering grounds. It looks as though the buck is listening too. Later in the morning this same buck is in the Pit Wood and you can see how he is losing his summer coat.

19th - 20th September

John completed one of his least favourite tasks - he has retensioned the wires that are fixed to the new gatepost. He has also finished the new and wider gate into the North-east Strip.

Clare had been disheartened to discover a little while ago that the two new honey bee queens had failed to mate properly and were laying drones. The third colony, however, which Clare was given as a very small colony last year, has gone from strength to strength. The bees did not swarm, however they did build up and put a lot of effort into foraging. Clare was able to take the fullest super of honey she has ever had off these bees. Clare has given the bees sugar syrup - a small compensation for their loss.

Note the sheep-proofing. John R’s sheep are due to arrive soon

Much sticky spinning activity will follow

22nd September

It has been a while since a fox has shown up on the trail cameras. This one is making its way through the Scrub.

24th September

Clare spent some time in the hide today and was pleased to hear Willow Tits, although they didn’t appear on the feeders. They can be noticeable by their absence in the autumn/winter months, so it is good to be reassured they are still around.

John has cut Willow whips from neighbour Sylvia’s tree again. They now need planting. Fly agaric in the Scrub and berries on the Spindle trees are indications that autumn in well under way.

25th September

Chiffchaffs still audible on the trail camera footage today.

26th September

One of the does reveals the extent to which she is losing her summer coat.

30th September

John and Clare visited to collect the camera discs for a last update on this month’s Blogpost. Clare heard a Chiffchaff still present in the Scrub. John saw five hares on the Hayfield and Clare saw one in the Pit Wood - a delightful ending to the month.

April - burgeoning

A reminder: in order to watch the video footage in the following Blog post, go to the Liddells website - www.liddells.co.uk, click on the Blog page and the videos will be available there.

Corrections and clarifications:

Clare is squirming with embarrassment on two counts. She has been reminded that ‘whence’ means ‘from when’ and that in pursuit of pedantry in last month’s Blog post, she fell prey to tautology. Apologies to all who were offended.

Second, for reasons best known to her unconscious, Clare forgot to mention a talk she gave twice last month. ‘Liddells: The first ten years’ was the last in the ‘Nature Near and Far’ series that Keith had proposed as a way to raise funds for Liddells. Clare offered it on 12th March, having also given it the day before to the Wildlife Group of the local branch of the U3A. The group will be following their talk up with a site visit in May. Clare was delighted that her talk was well received on both occasions and both John and Clare are hugely grateful to Keith for the idea of the talks and for giving four of them and to everyone, both attendees and those who were unable to come, who all supported the project and donated most generously.

Two postscripts - the most recent edition of the RSPB magazine included a short feature on Willow Tits (mentioned in last month’s Blog), noting them as ‘imperilled’ and describing the RSPB’s collaboration with their grounds maintenance contractor and community green space groups to improve habitat for these birds. The work includes ‘building natural dams in small watercourses to create wetter areas, increasing standing dead wood tp provide nesting spaces or installing nest boxes’. John and Clare realise that the spring stream and fallen wood near there in the Pit Wood maybe be part of the reason the birds are on Liddells.

Also, footage retrieved from a trail camera disc after last month’s Blog post was published shows a hare in the Scrub. Hares are always popular, however this footage is included in order to use the caption.

1st April

Clare was pleased to see the Blackthorn in the hedge by the apiary in flower at last. She set about some repair work on the Willow Avenue and foraged for Wild Garlic and Nettles to make some pesto.

4th April

The new position for the trail camera in the Scrub is proving fruitful. The camera captured footage of the pair of young bucks vying with each other. John suggests that as the bucks are yearlings, this is learning behaviour and the beginning of territorial aggression. There were eleven clips of this activity. John has stitched them together to give a better sense of it all. Although John has seen videos of red deer stags fighting in the rut, he has never witnessed this activity in roe deer.

5th April

The older buck, who is most likely the father of the two younger bucks, walks through the Scrub with the air of an animal that does not have to fight for territory. Oedipal reckonings may arise later.

Another piece of hare footage called for a suitable caption.

Clare has noticed several patches of Scarlet Elf Cap (aka Elf Cup) fungus in the Pit Wood recently. The Woodland Trust describes it as ‘mystical and cheery’ and notes that it ‘has been used as a medicine by the Oneida Native Americans to stop bleeding and was placed under bandages and on the navels of newborns to promote healing.’ Apparently ‘in past times, elf cups were made into arrangements with moss and leaves and sold as table decorations.’ The fungus is also edible and ‘can be stir fried and sprinkled in salads for colour. The fruiting bodies seem to be designed to use them like little baskets. [They can be filled] with any other seasonal ingredients to make raw wild canapés, like Three Cornered Leek, Garlic-Mustard, Wild Garlic or Wood Sorrel.’

6th April

The older buck demonstrates the tastiness of new shoots. Here he is nibbling on Elder.

7th April

A double delight - Clare saw and heard Willow Warblers for the first time this year and noticed that the Willows are coming into flower. The birds were in the Willows. It’s not without reason that the birds have the name they do.

Clare has seen Yellow Brain fungus on many occasions, however she has only recently remembered that it is also called Witches’ Butter. This particular example does look more buttery than some. Long term readers of this Blog may remember Witches’ Knickers and Witches’ Broomsticks from earlier posts. It was clearly important in the past to recognise the part witches played in nature. The Woodland Trust says, ‘According to European legend, if yellow brain fungus appeared on the gate or door of a house it meant that a witch had cast a spell on the family living there. The only way the spell could be removed was by piercing the fungus several times with straight pins until it went away. This is why yellow brain also has the common name of 'witches’ butter'. In Sweden, yellow brain fungus was burnt to protect against evil spirits.’

Clare doesn’t think there is any magic involved, however she was intrigued to notice how the water created curious reflections of rush in the pond.

The Scrub is having almost nightly badger visits, sometimes with more than one visit during the night. It is difficult to tell how many badgers there are, however it is possible there is more than one since the animals are often traveling in the same direction. There is much territory marking happening. The visits recorded thus far have been:

31/03 2308 going away from camera

01/04 21.39 coming towards camera

02/04 22.42 coming

05/04 21.57 going

05/04 22.41 coming

06/04 22.17 coming

06/04 22.36 coming

06/04 23.16 going

07/04 01.56 coming

07/04 23.29 coming

(Clare is reminded of the ‘minor masterpiece of unmalicious humour’, Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith. Pooter, the diarist, has two friends Cummings and Gowing. After an unfortunate incident in which Pooter paints the bath with red enamel paint, Cummings arrived followed shortly by Gowing. Pooter writes, ‘ I said: ‘A very extraordinary thing has struck me,’ ‘Something funny, as usual,’ said Cummings. ‘Yes,’ I replied; I think even you will say so this time. It’s concerning you both; for doesn’t it seem odd that Gowing’s always coming and Cummings’ always going?’) Which of the badgers is coming and which going, will have to remain a mystery.

8th April

The two young bucks are still in velvet and show signs of beginning to lose their winter coat. The same evening the trail camera shows they are still with the mother even though she will be having this year’s kids soon. The older buck follows two minutes later.

10th April

It is unusual for John and Clare not to see a hare when they are on Liddells these days. The cameras are picking up plenty of movement through the different areas. Here three hares seem to be involved in a chase, then two appear a few minutes later (this footage has some clear birdsong) and have a boxing flurry.

12th - 18th April

John is tackling gates. The gateway by the spoil heaps, while wide enough for the quad bike, is too narrow when the flail mower is attached. This means replacing one of the gateposts and retensioning the wires. Also one of the posts supporting the hurdle for the Wildflower meadow was broken in the most recent storm. John has decided to replace the hurdle with a metal gate.

Clare had a far easier time looking to see what plants had come into flower since she last investigated. She found Wild Garlic flowering in the Top Strip.

Extended gate

Badgers continue to come and go each night. From the 8th April there have been 31 further recordings; the badgers always pause to mark in the same places; several times there is only a gap of a few minutes between footage, with badgers going in the same direction.

The cameras pick up two foxes. One seen limping before in a different part of the Scrub, has lost a foot. This does not stop it hunting.

19th April

Clare came home from Liddells today with a big grin. Her morning started well when she opened the hives again and found all three colonies seemed to be thriving with capped brood on 3-4 frames each. The Wildflower meadow is covered in dandelions which accounts for the orange pollen the bees are bringing in. You can see that they are making the most of the good weather.

Recently Clare heard a reading from Maud Martha by Gwendoline Brooks in which she writes ‘the very word ‘meadow’ made her breathe more deeply and either fling her arms or want to fling her arms, depending on who was by, rapturously up to whatever was watching in the sky, but dandelions were what she chiefly saw. Yellow jewels for every day, studding the patched green dress of her back yard’.

Clare noticed deer slots on the path to the bee shed and following them found Violets and Wood Sorrel in flower.

Relieved that all seems as well as it can be with the bees, Clare went looking for more plants in flower and en route noticed a ladybird resting on some algae that Clare had pulled out of the roadside pond (perhaps algae does have a use), then she saw a mallard drake fly off the Big Pond followed shortly by the duck who flew off the island. Clare went to have a look and saw a nest with several eggs. She then decided to have a quick look in the two nest boxes that Juno had helped to make and one had a nest that was beginning to be feathered and the second had plenty of moss. From there Clare went to the Orchard to discover more blossom there than in any previous year. She was particularly pleased to see blossom on one of the Damsons that she and John has planted last Autumn.

Damson

Plum

Bird cherry

All this was lovely. Clare decided to go up to the Top Strip next and as she came to the top of the Crag, she could see three hares. She inched forward and witnessed five hares racing round in circles at the far end of the Hayfield. This went on for a minute or two then two hares went down the Crag and two started to come closer, then joy of joys, they started boxing. Clare was nervous to move and get her phone out to begin with, however the hares seemed oblivious of her presence and she was able to capture some footage. She was so close she could hear the animals grunting with the force of the boxing. You will see the fur literally flying. At the end of the first video, watch how the recumbent hare is gasping for breath.

Long term readers of the Blog will know that for a very long time Clare has hoped to see hares boxing on Liddells. She is delighted.

The day continued well - Field Maple out on the Hayfield, Cherry and False Oxlips out in the Top Strip. Then an insect on a Dandelion that proved to be a Meliscaeva auricollis or Spotted Meliscaeva. It is a ‘narrowly-built species of rather variable appearance. It is one of the first hoverflies to appear in spring and also flies on mild winter days’.

Field Maple

Wild Cherry

False Oxlip

Meliscaeva auricollis

Back down to the Wildflower Meadow - Cowslips in flower, Yellow Rattle is coming through as are the leaves of Common Spotted Orchid and Clare was delighted to notice emerging Adder’s Tongue Fern. She had first learned about the plant when Naomi Thwaite from the Wildlife Trust visited and impressed Clare and John by spotting the plants when they were only a centimetre or two high. Clare is proud that in the Adder’s Tongue Fern spotting department, she has made progress.

Cowslips

Common Spotted Orchid leaves

Adder’s Tongue Fern

As if this wasn’t all enough, when Clare looked at the camera disc she had brought home, she saw an, admittedly brief, hare mating attempt.

She also discovered that two foxes had been through in the early hours, just four minutes apart. Will the ducks and their eggs survive?

20th April

Recently John has been working on a talk about hares and his reading has included a book called The Leaping Hare. Clare thought of this when she saw the next clip, which she found amusing, but then having read recently about the naming of a process with which she is familiar, she decided to name the clip in honour of that. She hopes that this is a male hare leaping out of the way of a female though is enough of a realist to guess that it is a female avoiding a male.

21st April

John had discovered that the post on which he had hoped to hang the new gate on the Meadow, was also rotten and broken. One big learning has been to only use tanalised timber for posts in future. John enlisted Clare’s help and asked her to dig out the post. This went well until she discovered that the post had been set in postcrete. She threw in the trowel and John came, like a knight - hardly in shining armour, although a muddy quad bike is some sort of charger - with a pinch bar lance, to break the solid lump up. After much exertion with the spade, the spit and the pinch bar, and a tow from the quad, the job was completed. Clare thinks ‘the spade, the spit and the pinch bar’ should be a title for some kind of company but can’t think which. Suggestions from readers welcome.

Before the discovery of postcrete

Throwing in the trowel

Riding to the rescue

The gate hangs well.

When Clare captioned this photograph and wondered aloud about why pubs were thus called, John looked bemused. A bit of Googling revealed that ‘the gate hangs well’ or variations on that phrase, are common pub names in the Midlands where Clare grew up, however the name doesn’t seem to occur elsewhere. It is thought to be connected to a pub's proximity to a church gate, toll gate or town gate, though why specifically in the Midlands remains a mystery.

A Fritillary in flower on the Meadow in a place where Clare had sowed some seed and the patch of Wood Anemones that has increased considerably, were reward for all this hard work.

Elder is now coming in to flower.

21st - 23rd April

Seeing the badgers go through the Scrub with such regularity has been interesting, however Clare wanted to put a camera on the path behind the bee shed to capture some deer footage. This worked with comings and goings and much footage of hares, mostly running across the bottom path from west to east. Here are two clips - the pregnant doe comes up the slope and one of the younger bucks goes down. The buck is still in velvet, not in tatters as the caption suggests.

Clare had also moved a different camera - she had seen deer slots in the North East Strip and there is a clearly used path from there across the Meadow, so she hung a camera on the gatepost. The position seems to have been in a wind tunnel and Clare faced over 300 clips of wavy grass when she brought the disc home. Among the clips however, is a lovely close up of a hare and a few birds. There were only two clips of deer, both of the oldest buck (not included here), and one of a badger.

26th April

More emerging growth - Cuckoo Flower and Hornbeam caught Clare’s eye today.

The badgers appear everywhere. One comes up the slope behind the bee shed.

27th - 30th April

Footage of the young buck shows him still in velvet (footage not included here).

Mel completed his wildflower survey for April and said there had been ‘a whopping increase’ from 9 species in flower in March to 35 this month. He noticed three species that were new to his Liddells list, Large Bittercress, Meadow Foxtail and Damson.
Clare had a sit in the hide before collecting the camera discs for the end of the month, and was pleased to see a Redpoll. They have not appeared for a while. Siskins and a Tree Sparrow visited and quite a handful of Goldfinches as well as the usual Titmice.

Clare was successful in her search for the Large Bittercress Mel had mentioned although she forgot to take a photograph. She did notice Bilberry in leaf and Broom in flower on the Crag, and some of what she has always called Cow Parsley although her sister calls it Queen Anne’s Lace. Clare hadn’t realised both were names for the same plant. Queen Anne’s Lace seems a far more attractive name. Apparently the plant is associated with beauty, and the flower is sometimes referred to as 'bishops flower' and therefore it has become to symbolise sanctuary, safety and refuge.

Said plant was on the Hayfield and Clare saw it as she set about making the hundreds of molehills less mountainous. Five hours later she had succeeded. Woe betide any mole who creates a new hill.

December - preparing for new growth

1st - 14th December

There has been very little activity seen on the trail cameras thus far in the month, however John (farmer) has now moved his sheep off the land which could make a difference.

15th - 17th December

After little evidence of activity in the Pit Wood the camera there has recorded some. This does seem to chime with the removal of the sheep even though the sheep were not in the Pit Wood. First you see the two buck kids from this year, then the younger doe with her single doe kid, a buck sporting the beginnings of his antlers (this is probably a buck born last year), a pair of hares, a very wary doe (her ears are working nonstop) and four deer all foraging in the same area.

17th December

John and Clare began preparation to plant eight new fruit trees in the Orchard - maybe a kind of nominative determinism. This area of Liddells had a very large patch of wild raspberries in the early days of John and Clare’s guardianship which gave rise to the name. Subsequently John and Clare planted a few fruit trees, none of which fruited particularly well; the new planting is based on advice about improving the chances of pollination.

As there is little to illustrate this Blog post thus far, here is a riveting picture of holes in the ground ready for the trees and one of sticky buds which are already apparent on the Horse Chestnuts.

19th December

Clare and John planted the first five of the new fruit trees. They met with Ruth again who showed them the areas she thought would be good sites for mist nets and bird-ringing.

21st December

With no joy from the trail camera focussed on the big pond, Clare moved the camera to the north-west corner of Liddells where she had noticed some deer slots. The move proved fruitful with footage of a doe, then of that doe with one of her two buck kids and the younger of the two mature bucks. Back in the Pit Wood the camera there recorded a badger going through. It seems as though the wildlife is back in residence.

22nd December

John and Clare planted the remaining fruit trees. They have planted 2 x apples, 2 x pears, 2 x damsons and 2 x plums.

23rd - 25th December

John has spent time hauling out brash from last month’s tree felling.

Returning from replacing a disc in the NW corner camera, Clare noticed evidence of much digging in the Pit Wood at the point where two paths converge. She suspected a badger and moved one of the cameras. Her detective instincts were proved right.

The camera is also positioned on a deer path to and from Liddells and a neighbouring field and has offered several clips of the deer. The most mature buck appears on Christmas Day and you can see how much bigger his antlers are than on the younger buck.

Clare had foraged some berries and foliage from Liddells to make a garland for the door at home. While sorting through the greenery she found a Bronze Shieldbug Troilus luridus. This is the fourth shieldbug species Clare has found this year. The Wildlife trusts website says:

‘Perhaps one of the more difficult species to spot, the bronze shieldbug lives amongst both broadleaf and coniferous trees and is most likely to be found in woodland habitats. Although it feeds on tree sap during its early stages of life, the bronze shieldbug is normally predatory and uses its long proboscis (straw like mouth parts) to feed on a variety of other insects such as caterpillars.

Shieldbugs go through several stages of growth, with the younger stages known as nymphs. Bronze shieldbugs normally reach their adult stage during July, overwinter as adults, then mate the following spring. There is only one generation a year…

A study on bronze shieldbugs discovered that males vibrate to create pulses of low-frequency sound, which is believed to be a call to attract nearby females. After the signal was given, the female approached the male and began to feel him with her antennae.’

Good, good, good, good vibrations.

26th December

Ruth and her son set up the first of the mist nets and reported that they had had some success - they caught a handful of birds including, ‘three goldcrest. Also a blue tit and a great tit both ringed … in 2018 and are therefore 5 years old!’ Ringing attempts in the next few days look to be thwarted by the weather. Ruth has sent a couple of photos to show the nets in place in the main path going through the Scrub.

28th December

More footage of deer in the Pit Wood. The following two clips show the difference in size between the mature buck and the buck from last year and the difference in size of their antlers.

30th December

A pair of hares seem to be playing ‘Here we go round the Hawthorn bush’ in the Pit Wood.

31st December

Since the sheep were taken off, the moles have been having a Hayfield day. There are molehills everywhere.

John and Clare finished hauling out the brash from the Top Strip. On her way back Clare noticed this attractive fungi on the end of a birch log. It could be Crimped Gill Plicaturopsis crispa.

Liddells is very wet after recent rain; as John said, “‘tis the season to be plodging". Tra la la la la.

Thanks to all of you who have supported Liddells this year - your encouragement and feedback is most appreciated. We wish you all the very best for 2024.

John and Clare

October - rock stars

As always, if you wish to see the video footage included in this post, which is unlikely to be included through the email link, go to the Liddells website at www.liddells.co.uk and click on the Blog page. The videos will be there.

Corrections and clarifications: TrogTrogBlog Chris, a continuing source of support and encouragement as well as being a mine of information, pointed out that the dragonfly basking on the tree trunk in the photo below in last month’s Blog post, was not a male Southern Hawker but a male Common Hawker. Significantly Common Hawkers are not that common, so this proved to be a bit exciting. Chris said the Common Hawker, ‘has paired dots on the terminal segments (fused in southern), long shoulder stripes (short in migrant hawker) and a characteristic pattern on S2.  It doesn’t show well in your photo but the costa (leading edge of the wings) is yellow - it is brown in migrant hawker.  Common hawkers are said to prefer acidic standing water.’ Clare has bought a water testing kit…

1st October

A late afternoon walk round Liddells and as John and Clare came up to the top of the Crag, John spotted two deer and three hares all grazing near each other on the Hayfield. Getting too close would have disturbed them so here is one of each.

Clare managed to identify another fungus thanks to the wildfooduk website. The fungus is an Orange Grisette and you can read more about it here.

2nd October

Excitement for Clare as Ian delivered the colony of bees for which she has been waiting. It seems to be quite a strong colony. Before opening the entrance Clare put a bundle of leafy branches in front of it so any emerging bees would realise they weren’t in Kansas any more and would reorientate. As soon as the entrance plug was removed Clare and Ian could see that happening as the emerging bees went off for short flights before returning to the brood box presumably to communicate this new information.

4th October

Clare put a clearer board on the new colony to remove the bees from the super above so that could be taken away leaving all the bees in the brood box for the winter. The clearer board stays on overnight - and is designed in such a way that the bees in the super go down to the brood nest for the night then can’t get back up into the super next morning.

Clare noticed fungi on a Birch tree in the Pit Wood; the growths looked like footholds for climbing. The fungus is, appropriately, Birch polypore. The birch polypore is also known as the 'Razorstrop fungus' because its rubbery, leather-like surface was once used to sharpen knives and razors. Probably a bit of a stretch to sharpen a chain saw.

5th - 19th October

Clare had noticed recent signs of excavation near a large boulder on one of the paths down the Crag. The boulder has cavities below although it isn’t possible to know how big these are. John set up a trail camera and he and Clare awaited results.

October 5th

The buck kid makes an appearance. You can just see the start of buttons appearing where his antlers will grow next year. He is also in full winter coat.

The big buck goes past eight minutes later, past offering a close-up of his fine head and gorget patches.

There was quite a lot of footage of a grey squirrel. John and Clare usually delete such footage (and grey squirrels), however since the footage provides evidence of all the wildlife in this small area, and of some of the excavation, here is one clip which shows the squirrel burying what is probably an acorn.

A hare also appears to be curious about what may lie under the rock.

October 6th

The first of several clips of a badger. The animal has a look down the hole and then appears to be curious about the red light on the camera.

A male pheasant walks past the camera. Pheasants are more usually seen in the woodland patches or the Scrub.

10th October

As a record of all the wildlife associated with this large rock, the slug also needs to be acknowledged. This one takes two minutes to cover a distance of about six inches. This perseverance merits the second clip although it is hardly going at a clip. Of course it might be for a slug. It doesn’t appear again in the footage so may have gone into a crevice or a Slough of Despond. You never can tell with slugs.

14th October

There were a few videos of field or wood mice (different names, same creature). This one gives the clearest view. It is possible that the mouse is storing berries and seeds under the rock.

A buck kid appears and is joined by another kid. As the first kid moves away there is a clear view of the caudal patch. A female would have an anal tush. The caudal patch is more prominent in winter and when the deer is alarmed the erectile hairs make the patch look bigger.

15th October

One of many video clips of rabbits. Here are two rabbits for the price of one.

16th October

A rabbit in a hole, although whether or not it is in a difficult situation is unknowable. It does go on to do some digging, adding to the evidence bag for the excavations. John and Clare thought readers might not need this particular piece of evidence.

With the damp weather have come an abundance of midges and mosquitoes. The camera has captured them in front of the rock.

19th October

There have been several badger visits, however this is the first in which a badger completely disappears into the hole beneath the rock. Four hours later two badgers investigate. Although badgers have frequently appeared in trail camera footage, John and Clare have never found a sett on Liddells. This footage might suggest these badgers are looking to set up a sett. Setting a precedent.

With more of her attention focussed on this area of the Crag than usual, Clare noticed a patch of moss or lichen that caught her attention. She has been unable thus far to identify it. Any ideas, please email.

There has been far more wildlife in this small area than either Clare or John had imagined. They have moved the camera now, however may well position it back in front of the rock at a later date.

Meanwhile back on the rest of Liddells:

7th October

Barry delivered a new colony of bees for Clare. The colony’s queen was raised from a frame of eggs from one of Clare’s colonies last year. After several weeks Barry had thought this had been unsuccessful and had left the bees to their own devices. After quite a while he thought he would check on them, expecting to find most of them dead, and was met with a thriving colony. As Clare was without bees at the time, he very generously offered them to her. While he and Clare were talking by the bottom gate a stoat made its way across the Meadow and stood up on its hind legs very close to the gate, displaying its creamy underside. It was one of those times when getting a camera out would have alarmed the creature so there is no photographic evidence of the moment.

14th October

The Spindle trees are resplendent in their pink berries. The berries have bright orange seeds and although they are poisonous to humans, they are food for mice and birds.

17th October

John saw six deer on Liddells today, four on the Hayfield and two along the top of the Crag.

18th October

The hay has been collected at last. John and Clare were concerned about it deteriorating in the wet weather.

This evening John gave the first in a series of six talks offered to raise funds for Liddells. This is all thanks to Keith, who a while ago had offered four of his talks to raise money for Liddells. John’s talk was one he had given locally a few weeks ago. He is now booked with several local WI groups. The evening represents how John and Clare are thinking about making Liddells more widely known and available to interested groups.

19th October

Clare heard and saw large numbers of Fieldfares and Redwings while she walked round today. She also spotted three Goldcrests and noticed lot of Blackbirds - the winter visitors from Scandinavia are arriving.

22nd October

As Clare and John approached the top gate they saw about four and twenty black birds (irresistible) on the Oak at the top of the Crag; they were Rooks eating acorns. This is not behaviour either John or Clare have seen before.

John and Clare walked round in welcome sunshine to see if there was much damage from storm Babet. A couple of limbs had come off trees, the largest being from the Oak at the bottom of the Crag. The spring overflow was gushing water down the stream and water was coming up from the previous site of the spring a few yards east of where it is capped. This has only happened a couple of times before in the last ten years. As Clare captioned the photograph ‘Torrents’, she recalled a song by Elgar she had learned at choir, ‘As Torrents in Summer’ and wondered if there was an autumn version.

Large numbers of Fieldfares and Redwings were eating hawthorn berries in the Pit Wood.

A male Southern Hawker was flying around near the Big Pond and a lot of bluebottles were basking on a couple of tree trunks nearby. The flies on one of the trunks appeared to be making use of a vertical groove in the trunk.

Clare noticed the advancing rot in one of the trees left to decay in the Pit Wood. Rotting wood adds to habitat diversity on the site as well as looking rather sculptural.

30th October

Rain has prevented much play on Liddells for a few days, however John has made the Hayfield secure for the sheep which will be arriving shortly. The Meadow road wall also needs attention before the sheep go on there - now on the list for the next dry spell.

John saw a Woodcock - this may be resident or one that has flown in. Regular Blog readers may recall that folklore has it that these birds arrive with the first full moon in November. This isn’t due until 27th November this year, so maybe this bird took advantage of the Hunter’s Moon on 28th October.

31st October

The stream down from the spring is fuller than it has ever been.

As the month ends, here are two images that speak of time to come. Two nascent trees, an Oak with a well placed understory of Holly growing in the Scrub and some lichen that could provide nourishment in a harsh winter. Clare’s friend Gillian reminded her that lichen only grows in areas of low/no air pollution which is a comforting thought about Liddells. This particular lichen is Ramalina farinacea. The trail cameras have captured roe deer eating it on Liddells in snowy conditions. The lichen is packed with carbohydrates (more pound for pound than potatoes), contains usnic acid which has anti-biotic properties against pneumonia, streptococcus and tuberculosis bacteria, and has anti-viral, anti-inflammatory and preservative qualities. If this winter proves to be particularly harsh, John and Clare might use it themselves.

September - time to rest

As usual, video footage can be accessed through the Blog page of the website: www.liddells.co.uk

2nd September

John and Clare have decided that the next ten years will involve less hard work, accordingly they had a stroll to begin the new month. Clare found a Harvestman occupying the Necessarium, Purple Loosestrife offering late forage for pollinators and the first fir cones on one of the young Scots Pines.

3rd September

Enough rest - Clare did some preparatory work for a small wall repair on the west boundary while John repaired fencing on the Hayfield in readiness for the sheep to come later in the year.

Clare found a Violet already in flower on the edge of the Pit Wood.

Clare was delighted to see a Spotted Flycatcher from the hide. These birds haven’t been seen since early in the season. This one may have been feeding up en route south or it may have been around the whole time.

A hare in the north-west corner of the Pit Wood demonstrates the art of stretching.

4th - 5th September

John and Clare completed the wall repair then John extracted an unused hurdle from long grass while Clare used a crowbar to dig up some buried coping stones on the Hayfield. Unfortunately the crowbar slipped. As Clare takes most of the photos, not many of her appear in the Blog - good to swing the balance a bit; it would have been better not to swing the crowbar.

There has not been much activity on the roadside pond this season so Clare was delighted to spot this female Southern Hawker ovipositing near the edge.

9th September

Always good to see later flowering plants for the pollinators. Here a bee forages on Michaelmas daisies in the Meadow.

It was the local Village Show this morning and John won a first prize for his photo of a Spotted Flycatcher taken earlier in the summer, and Clare won a second prize for the Red Admiral photograph from last month’s blog post.

A kid shows off its pronking skills in the Pit Wood.

11th - 12th September

Another new insect discovery, this time a Sun fly Helophilus pendulus. It is a hoverfly and its scientific name means ‘dangling marsh-lover.’ It was neither dangling nor on a marsh. While Clare was giving some syrup to the bees, she noticed a beetle had fallen into one of the wasp traps. She fished it out and wrapped it in a tissue to bring home to check the identification. It was a Smooth Ground beetle and as you can see from the photograph, appeared pretty much dead, however the next day Clare was surprised to see it climbing out of the compost bucket where she’d put it. Another dramatic drowning insect rescue and revival.

In the gloom a badger marks territory on the edge of the Pit Wood.

13th September

John and Clare were delighted to welcome Linda F back to walk round Liddells with a view to some creative writing activity in the future. While Linda and Clare were exploring they saw a male Southern Hawker basking on a tree trunk and a female Common Darter basking on a stone, both by the Big Pond. They also noticed a group of Puffballs that had released their spores.

After Linda had left, Clare went foraging for this year’s Hedgerow Jelly and foraged quite a few creatures with the fruit - two different shield bugs and two species of spider. None of them will go into the jelly. Clare also videoed a Speckled Wood foraging on the blackberries. The butterfly seems to prefer the fruits that have gone over slightly.

Hawthorn Shield Bug

Birch Shield Bug - this is about the size of a ladybird

Eurasian armoured long-jawed orb-weaver Metellina segmentata

Clubiona comta

14th September

The doe with twins sets about grooming them.

22nd September

Clare discovered that as well as the familiar Bluebottle fly, there is a Greenbottle - here is one on Michaelmas daisies.

23rd September

Catching Covid has left John and Clare unable to do little more than gentle strolls on Liddells, however today Clare enjoyed sixteen sightings of hares - of course several were probably the same hare or hares, however the views certainly helped lift the spirits. There were five at one time on the Hayfield.

25th September

Yet another recuperative stroll and watching a hare run away on the edge of the Pit Wood alerted Clare to an Elm tree she had never noticed before. It’s quite small and much higher up the bank than the ones already identified. Liddells continues to surprise.

26th September

One of the does shows how much her coat is changing to winter colours. She also shows gorget patches. John has read some commentators who think that these are more prominent in winter.

28th September

John may not be working much, however Clare discovered that he had invested in a new toolbox dedicated to spanner activity. It takes all sorts. Clare was amused by the double sense of this and decided to see if there are any spanner jokes available. Of course there are. Once again Liddells proves to be a route to consciousness raising.

29th September

Michaelmas Day - the day that marks the end of harvest, the start of winter and the beginning of shorter days. Oak leaves are on the turn.

The doe with twins is quite clear with them that milk is off the menu. Maybe she too needs a rest. It looks at this stage as if both kids might be bucks.

Hares seem to be playing Hide and Seek.

February - preparations

To see the Blog with all the video footage, go to www.liddells.co.uk

Left over from January - a fox limps its way through the Pit Wood. The smaller doe squeaks her way along the same path.

1st February

Clare has long said that she wished she knew more about grasses, sedges and rushes. Today she began a course with the Natural History Society of Northumbria on exactly that topic. She learned many new words, always a personal delight, and hopes that by the end of the course she will be able to use them confidently and appropriately. ‘Awn,’ ‘glume,’ ‘tepals', ‘lemma,’ ‘palea,’ ‘stolon,’ ‘culm', ‘auricle’ and ‘ligule’ might also help improve a Scrabble game. ‘Sedges have edges’ is also a good starter phrase and easy to remember.

John began work on the fourth bench.

A fox - not limping - goes off the path in the Pit Wood.

2nd February

The older buck makes his way through the Pit Wood and the camera captures excellent footage of the velvet on his antlers. As yet there is no evidence of him fraying to remove it.

3rd February

Clare took steps to finish putting wire on the approach to the shepherd’s hut; John finished the third bench.

Should the bees emerge in warm spells, there is forage ready for them.

5th February

Clare checked that all the hives had fondant - this can be a time of year when bees starve if they have eaten all their store and there is insufficient forage available for them. If the weather warms and then goes cold again, there is a risk that the queen starts laying but the colony is still too small for the workers to keep the brood warm, so while others are enjoying balmy early spring days, Clare and other beekeepers are concerned.

Clare planted more Periwinkle that she had grown from cuttings. This time she covered them with mesh as previous shoots had been eaten.

John continued his creative recycling for the meeting room; this time the fourth bench top is made from sawn up bed slats from a bed frame he and Clare inherited when they moved house. John also finished plugging gaps in the meeting room roof to keep out the rain. Thus far this treatment seems to have worked.

Clare identified more wall repair that needs to go on the to-do list.

The pheasant feeders that came with Liddells have been removed. Clare and John are hoping that without a supply of food, the pheasants will move elsewhere and stop taking up so much camera footage and battery power.

‘Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis)

From Flowers of the Field, 1885

Too well known to need any description. Fl. January - March.

Rev. C.A. Johns (1811-1874)’ From Nature Writing for Every Day of the Year

7th February

John and Clare seem to be subject to the organising zeitgeist. John created extra storage in the log shed while in the tool shed Clare channelled some of Marie Kondo’s principles.(While looking up exactly what Marie Kondo suggests, Clare noticed that under the heading ‘What are the 5 steps of the Konmari method' 6 Rules are listed:

Rule 1: Commit Yourself to Tidying Up. The KonMari Method™ is not a quick fix for a messy room or a once-in-a-while approach to tidying. ...

Rule 2: Imagine Your Ideal Lifestyle. ...

Rule 3: Finish Discarding First. ...

Rule 4: Tidy by Category, Not by Location. ...

Rule 5: Follow the Right Order. ...

Rule 6: Ask Yourself If It Sparks Joy.

It would seem that Kondo has neglected to discard one.

Clare was certainly pleased with her work, and will be joyful if her efforts are maintained.

14th February

In accord with the tradition of putting up bird boxes on St Valentine’s Day, John and Clare added a new box in the Pit Wood.

15th - 18th February

Clare discovered Woodpecker activity on a dead Elder behind the bee hives. As it is early in the year this is most likely to be from drumming to stake out territory.

Clare applied her organisational skills to the log shed and after three days’ work all the dry logs were stacked at home ready for this year’s autumn/winter burning, and all the wood that had been sawn and split ready to dry was stacked.

19th February

An entirely new experience on Liddells - John had met some detectorists working on land nearby and invited them to visit Liddells. Wayne, Mac, John and Lisa were delighted to accept the offer and spend a hard-working morning with the metal detectors. They covered the Top Grazing and the Meadow and then worked over the spoil heaps near the hives.

There proved to be no need to contact the British Museum with the finds, however there was some social history evidenced. The remains of a toastrack, a tin of Snowfire Vanishing Cream from the 1930s (here is one in fine condition https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/snowfire-vanishing-cream-alluminium-423388038), a tube of Synulox (still prescribed and used for treating a range of bacterial infections in cats and dogs, a tube of Orbenin (also still prescribed and used for the treatment of ocular infections in cattle, sheep, horses, dogs and cats), a Matchbox Series 23 Trailer Caravan (they were produced from 1965-1969; here is one in pristine condition: https://matchbox.fandom.com/wiki/Trailer_Caravan), a very rusted door handle, parts of an oil lamp, 2 spent bullets, the bowl of a spoon, the handle-end of a trowel or similar, several buttons, tuppence ha’penny (a George V penny, a George VI penny dated 193? and a George VI ship ha’penny), a nut, various unidentifiable bits of metal, inevitably the remains of a few aluminium cans, two bottle tops and some pieces of metal decoration whose origin is mysterious (top left of the photograph). If anyone has any ideas about what it might have been these last pieces decorated, feel free to email them in.

Meanwhile John and Clare planted an Oak grown and donated by their alarm maintenance engineer, wove straggly Willows into the arbour round one of the benches and completed a second section of wall repair.

The Liddells Hoard

23rd - 24th February

Dave came to help finish the wall as some of the stones needed extra lifting power.

Clare found frogspawn on the roadside pond however it was brown, which suggested it had been affected by the cold weather which had been distinctly brumous (‘Brumous’ Foggy, wintry OED Word of the Day 24.02.23).

Clare moved the camera from the Pit Wood to start this season’s Pond Watch - there were four clips of a heron within the first 24 hours and some interesting early morning visitors.

25th - 26th February

John and Clare set up a nesting box assembly line, completed 10 boxes and put 5 on trees in or near the Scrub. The boxes are mostly made from left over bits of shed not needed in the rebuilding works.

Clare planted a tray of Snowdrops in the Pit Wood and heard a thrush singing on Liddells for the first time this year. She recorded the singing which was accompanied by a Chaffinch, Robin and Great Spotted Woodpecker drumming - all suggesting the nest-box making is timely.

Clare also carried out an equipment inventory in her bee shed and was pleased that due to somewhat over-zealous prep last year, she has all the equipment she needs to start this bee-keeping year.

John saw a Woodcock near the Junipers.

28th February

Luke the Mole Man arrived with his traps - the final aspect of this month’s preparation.

January 2023 - benchmarking

1st January

To experience the Blog in all its video glory, go to liddells.co.uk and click on Blog.

Clare began her year delighted to be able to return to some bird-watching. It was as if a rainbow had come out. After a lot more rain the roadside pond seems to be holding its level.

The Pit Wood trail camera captures the old buck - you can see this year’s antlers forming and how thickly covered they are with velvet. John says the older bucks grow their antlers before the younger ones and growth begins as soon as they shed the old ones, which can be any time in November and December.

2nd January

John lit the first fire of the year in the shepherd’s hut. A stoat and two hares keep warm with activity in the Scrub.

3rd January

A hare looks contemplative in the Pit Wood and a young doe noses around.

4th - 5th January

John started work on the benches for the Meeting Room, recycling upstands from benches he made for Hal and Beth several years ago.

John provided his own caption - ‘John has been elevated to the bench’

5th - 7th January

John planted more Willows, started work on a second bench and saw fives hares as he was walking around.

The Pit Wood trail camera captured a pair of hares that looked as if they might start boxing.

In the Scrub, the doe and triplets go round in circles, disturbed by nearby shooting.

9th January

John did more work on the second bench for the meeting room and plugged some of the leaks from the recycled and storm damaged roofing sheets with a bitumen sealant. He is hoping this will work.

Clare began putting netting on the shepherd’s hut steps which are very slippery when wet.

10th - 14th January

John did some stone-walling repair work on the north boundary, worked on the second bench, added more sealant to the roof (his work two days ago seems to have been effective), and added a drip cover to one of the windows.

The first fox of the year is captured on camera in the Pit Wood. It pauses to look at the camera light.

The young buck’s antlers continue to grow.

A kid’s squeak is very clearly heard in Pit Wood footage.

The Pit Wood camera captures four roe deer and very clearly shows the difference in rump pattern between the three does and the buck.

Either one badger goes through the Scrub twice ot two badgers go through about 40 minutes apart.

15th January

The second bench is nearly complete so John started on the frame for one of the tables. Then demonstrated how they might be used.

Clare is adopting a one-step-at-a-time approach.

16th January

Snow! While John was walking round with his camera, he saw five deer moving from the Scrub, up and along the Crag, across the Top Grazing and into the Top Strip. He only managed to get four of them on camera. He said they were most likely the old buck, older doe and her three triplets.

17th January

For reasons best known to itself, the Scrub trail camera has decided to stop taking video footage in favour of stills, however it has captured a stoat with prey and a Woodcock.

19th January

Chris B met John and Clare to talk about bringing up some hard core to fill in the muddy ruts on the Top Grazing near the gate. Clare heard a Great Spotted Woodpecker drumming nearby. It continued to drum on and off throughout the morning’s visit. John and Clare filled the feeders and sat in the hide and were rewarded by a Bullfinch feeding on bramble seeds in front of the hide. Neither John nor Clare dared move to reach for a camera. Bullfinches are resident on Liddells and often seen in the trees, however they seldom venture near the feeders so this was a particular delight.

20th January

Taking best advantage of the hard, frosty ground, Chris sent a team up to make the roadway less muddy. John was impressed not only by the speed and efficiency of the work, but by skilful digger manipulation and trailer reversal.

The result

21st - 22nd January

A Jay digs for acorns in the snow.

John made a start on a second table, using timber from the small and now outgrown bed he made for Juno.

Ice on the roadway pond looks to be in Art Deco style as it begins to thaw. The water below is draining away slightly so the ice surface is sloping.

Catkins have appeared on hazels and alders in the Pit Wood. The catkins on the old hazel tree are far more abundant though less developed than on the more recently planted trees.

23rd - 30th January

John continued his work on the table tops and started the third bench. He has sanded, varnished and planed the edges.

A badger demonstrates the meaning of rootling.

Signs of Spring activity to come are appearing - one hare is clearly interested in another; two different badgers (one larger than the other) an hour or so apart mark their territory on opposite sides of the path in the Pit Wood; a fox marks his territory in the same area; a pair of male pheasants confront each other.

The family of four roe deer are still being seen together, although the smaller of the two young does is often captured several minutes behind the others. The single doe and kid haven’t been seen on film for some time now so have probably moved on to find their own territory.

Clare noticed several deposits of a white opaque jelly round the edges and on the island of the big pond. On closer inspection these were attached to what looked like eggs. Keith thinks they are snail eggs, most likely of the water snails.

John noticed that something has been nibbling away at the trunk of one of the trees in the Orchard - possibly hares or rabbits during the cold spell.

31st January

Final benchmarks and a rainbow for the end of the month.

John wishes it to be known that he realises that the bench position in the next photograph is preferable to the arrangement above.

July - discoveries, neither hellish nor boring

There are more than usual video clips this month - roe kids are very cute. Remember that you are unlikely to be able to access these through the Blog email. Go to www.liddells.co.uk click on the Blog and watch them through the website.

John and Clare have been waiting and hoping for sightings of this year’s roe kids, and the first glimpse was towards the end of last month, however retrieved too late to include it in the June blog post.

1st July

Kathryn L came to plant trees she had kindly donated - a beech, an oak, two birches, a rowan and a holly. Cutting gorse for protection revealed a birds’ nest tucked deep into a gorse bush near the top gate. The nest hasn’t been feathered so may not have been used this year.

Kathryn planting ‘Son of a Beech’

2nd July

The trail camera in the Scrub is showing at least six hare appearances in any twenty-four hour period.

The trail camera in the Pit Wood shows another tantalising glimpse of a roe and kid.

Earlier in the year, and on the way to check on one of Juno’s bird boxes, Clare had noticed an unfamiliar plant growing near one of the signposts to the hide. She had kept her eye on it and wondered if it might be an orchid although since the flowers have been late emerging, she dismissed the idea. More on this story later…

3rd - 6th July

The repair work from Storm Arwen continues. John finished restoring the fencing behind the sheds and started on the stretch at the east end of the Top Strip. Clare was delighted to see a pair of Bullfinches below the Scrub - she had remarked yesterday that it was a while since she had seen any. So gratifying to know the birds are listening.

At last there is a proper view of the new kid. Then one of the doe and kid together. Take a look at the shape of the doe’s muzzle. More on this story later…

The old buck chases another deer through the Scrub. John says it is a bit early for the rut (mid July to mid August), so more likely the buck is chasing another buck off his patch in readiness.

The hare is investigating a fern frond. More on this story later…

The doe appears with the kid. Then another kid. Then another kid - triplets again!

7th July

Obviously footage of the kids is irresistible. This doe’s muzzle markings are clearly visible. The edges of her muzzle are squared off.

A little later, still in the Pit Wood, a doe with a different muzzle shape appears. This muzzle tapers to a point at the sides.

8th July

The hare checks the frond again. Or it might be a different hare.

Clare and John set about collecting Yellow Rattle seeds from the Top Grazing. They were pleased to see how well the plant is establishing there.

Clare busied herself trying to photograph a wood wasp on one of the log piles, however it found a way down to the bottom and out of the camera’s view. On the way home from Liddells, John and Clare realised they had a longhorn beetle in the car which probably decided to hitch a ride while they were distracted by the wood wasp.

9th July

The buck is marking in the Scrub again. This is probably preparation for the rut, as would be chasing off any other bucks.

John and Clare are watching the footage of the new kids carefully and are a bit confused by what they are seeing - sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes three. It is perfectly possible that sometimes a kid or two is off camera. However, the doe’s muzzle in the second of the three clips below, is just visible, and looks to be pointed at the sides. The kid on its own in the third video, may well be the third kid, following a little behind.

John and Clare are reaching the conclusion that there are two does with kids, one with three, and one with one. The doe with one kid is likely to be a youngster, no more than two years old. John says it is unusual for two does to be appearing to share the same territory.

10th - 14th July

Activity on the Top Grazing. John starts putting in the posts for the outdoor classroom. The hay is cut. (7th - 11th July is 温風至 Atsukaze itaru - Warm winds blow - in the Japanese microseasons. Good hay-making weather.)

Clare was surprised to find that the bees in the first colony she split are once again thinking of swarming. Nothing ventured, she decided to execute another split, putting the swarm cell and four other frames of brood into a nucleus hive. More on this story later…

Clare began digging reeds out of the roadside pond while it is empty, and using the opportunity to add a little more depth to the pond.

One doe and one kid appear in the Scrub on two occasions; one kid appears, and leaves, independently. Then a doe goes through with three kids.

A hare nibbles at a rose stem in the Scrub. When Clare looked closely at the stem later, she found that it had no leaves (the hare doesn’t seem to be eating leaves), and concluded that the hare must have been eating the thorns. Rabbits are known to eat all parts of roses, including the thorns; as with deer, they are drawn to plants in the Rosaceae family, so it is likely hares are too. In a later video one hare jumps out at another; the first is noticeable smaller than the second, so probably one of this year’s young being surprised by an established resident. The next clip shows the hares apparently not in conflict.

15th July

After a long interruption, Clare and John were delighted to organise a Green Gym Day. They had over 50 trees to plant - donations and their own successful germinations from acorns and conkers - however as the forecast showed days of very hot, dry weather to come, planting trees with no means of watering them seemed to be a bad idea. The other task was to harvest Yellow Rattle seeds from the Wildflower Meadow. All good plans… There was rain. Off and on, quite a lot of rain. With the hot weather still in prospect, planting was out and with the rain, seed collection was out. What to do? John and Clare had been thinking about taking up the path at the west end of the Top Strip to make it possible to cut with the flail mower. The first job was to remove all the edging logs and the stakes holding them in place.

Clare arrived early and decided to catch up with the weekly email from the Northumbria Natural History Society. The email featured a short video on the Broad-leaved Helleborine. Clare was excited to realise that this very closely resembled the mystery plant near the hide and set off to check. Helleborines are also part of the orchid family. Bingo!

The Green Gym team arrived and set about tackling the Top Strip path. They created several piles of pleasingly rotting wood that will no doubt be appreciated by the local bug life. Gratifyingly, there seemed to be no need to pull up all the membrane underneath the path as there is sufficient weed growth for the chip, which is composting anyway, not to compromise the flails. There were gaps in the rain almost long enough for a picnic lunch. Clare noticed that for the first time there were nuts on one of the hazels planted as understory several years ago.

After the work was done, Clare took Pat with her to examine the plants again, and Pat noticed that some flowers had begun to open at the base of the spike, and agreed with the identification.

The doe and three kids are seen on the trail camera, as is the lame doe who hasn’t appeared for a while.

17th July

Although they are two days apart, the clip of the limping doe is followed by a video of a limping fox.

Clare was rewarded for her frequent visits to monitor the Nettle-leaved bellflower in the Scrub, and found that it had come into flower. In spite of the plant allegedly producing copious amounts of seed, there has only ever been one plant in this area.

The Alder Buckthorns from Tim and Jane have grown beyond the tops of their tubes.

Mel had been excited to hear about the Broad-leaved helleborine, saying it was a plant he had been looking for for many years. He went to see it and reported back that there were another 15-20 plants downstream of the first. So not a random occurrence but more likely an established colony that had just gone unnoticed all these years. It is thanks to Juno’s bird boxes that they were seen at all.

Clare inspected the nucleus and hive from which it had been split. There was another queen cell under construction in the nucleus, so Clare took that down, leaving the original. The hive will remain in purdah for a month or so until any new queen has had time to emerge, mature, mate and start laying. More on this story next month… There were eggs in the other hive so it would seem as if the bees have given up on the idea of swarming. It is now late in the season for them to do so, although bees have never been known to read the text books.

Clare was pleased to see a male Linnet in the Scrub - another bird that hadn’t been noticed around for a while.

A hare breaks off a piece of the bracken frond, then leave it uneaten. Some ferns are toxic to rabbits and hares. Maybe this hare remains unsure about this particular plant and takes the safe option.

19th July

John went out for an evening’s deer watching, armed with a video camera and a squeaker that mimics a roe kid’s cry. He wondered if the squeaker would attract a doe and kids. Instead the sound attracted the old buck who came barking and leaping around the Wetland. The buck would be looking for does to mate.

John also saw a Tawny Owl fly out of the North-east Strip.

20th July

The hay was baled yesterday. Barry advised that the bales are left standing to cool down for about 10 days. If they are stacked while the hay is very warm, and in this heat, there is a risk of combustion.

Knowing that the big pond was gradually getting choked with rush and Branched Bur-reed, Clare decided to face her dislike of wading through mud and to order waders so that she could tackle the task of reducing the numbers of these plants. With the dry weather the water in the pond is fast disappearing, offering the perfect opportunity to wade in. Clare began by working round the edges of the island which has slowly been increasing in size. She has decided to call the island St John’s, not to beatify John but to reflect the increasing number of St John’s Wort plants that appear there each year.

The doe with one kid appears in the Pit Wood. There are four clips of a kid foraging on its own in the Scrub, over a period of 8 minutes.

21st July

Clare spotted a pair of mating Red Soldier beetles on Hogweed. It isn’t a very good photograph, however she wanted to use the caption.

A kid leaps off into the Scrub, and then a doe emerges from the direction in which it leapt.

Bonkers.

(Red Soldier beetles are commonly known as Hogweed Bonking beetles. They are doing what it says on the tin.)

22nd July

A fox with gait unimpaired trots through the Scrub. A couple of hours later a badger goes through with a passing interest in the fern. Another couple of hours and a badger comes towards the camera.

23rd July

More pond work. Clare noticed what appeared to be a newly emerged and not fully uncurled male Common Hawker Dragonfly very near where she was working. It obligingly moved onto her arm where John was able to take a photograph. Clare then replaced it on rush where she kept an eye on it. It straightened up over the next few minutes. Clare looked in vain for the exuvia - the cast skin from which it had emerged.

While on her way up through the Pit Wood near the hide, Clare spotted another 4 Broad-leaved Helleborines. They are several yards away from the original finds. She then went to top up the feeders and thought to have another look at the plants on the way out. Curiously they weren’t quite where she had remembered. That was because this was yet another different patch although closer to the one found earlier. Altogether there are another 9 plants; today’s finds are more fully in flower. Not including the ones that are sitting still unnoticed.

There is a sequence of four videos showing the doe, the doe with one kid, with two kids and a bit of grooming, then again a third kid appears a couple of minutes later. In the first clip, you can just see the pointed edges to her muzzle. She is being bothered by the flies.

24th July

It is the season for discoveries. Today Clare spotted another plant in the Pit Wood that she had not noticed before. She thinks it is Lesser Burdock.

On her way through the Orchard she saw two juvenile Chiffchaffs in an Elder, and on the path leading up away from the Orchard, she found a Thrush anvil.

Lesser Burdock

Empty broken snail shells by the Thrush anvil

26th July

Mel came to help dig reed and rush out of the big pond. Clare decided that as well as the phrase ‘mud in your eye’ there should be ‘mud in your ear,’ ‘mud up your nose,’ ‘mud in your mouth’ and ‘mud in your hair’. The OED Word of the Day came up with a timely offering: goopy, ‘That is viscous or semi-liquid, often in an unpleasant or disgusting way’. Clare regretted not taking a ‘before’ photograph of the pond, however she did manage an ‘after’. There were plenty of dragon flies and damselflies about, particularly emerald damselflies, and a Common Hawker laying eggs.

Mel and Clare went to visit the ‘new’ helleborines and found not eight, but thirteen. On the way Mel noticed that the red clover in the Pit Wood is Zigzag clover. The leaves are longer and more pointed that with the usual red clover, the flowers are redder and more open, and where side shoots emerge from the main stem, the main stem goes off at a slight angle, hence ‘Zigzag’.

Tim has noticed that butterflies are fewer in number and diversity this year, however at the moment there are a large number of Small Skippers around.

Zigzag clover

Small Skipper on Hogweed

29th July

The day began with rain, then warmed up, the perfect illustration of the start of 土潤溽暑 Tsuchi uruōte mushi atsushi: Earth is damp, air is humid, 29th July - 2nd August. John began fixing boards to one side of the classroom. Clare dug out some more reeds and rush and spotted an azure damselfly by her foot.

30th July

John did further work on the classroom while Clare mudlarked about in the big pond and dug out more of the roadside pond. The big pond looks a little fuller after two days of heavy rain; the roadside pond remains empty. There was plenty of life in the big pond with water boatmen, pondskaters, pond snails, water beetles all visible, as well as damsel and dragonflies flying around.

May - doing the splits

1st May

John saw the two Mandarin ducks on the big pond in daylight. Unfortunately they were too far away for his phone camera.

2nd May

The local Community Choir with which Clare sings, has the bonkers habit of meeting at the local bandstand to sing in the sunrise on the first of the May Bank Holidays. They then eat breakfast together. Three years ago this day coincided with International Dawn Chorus Day so Clare took several singers with her for a walk round Liddells after the breakfast, in order to listen to some birdsong. This year she repeated the offer and nine others joined in. She began the walk by suggesting people kept their eyes open for hares as it was very unusual to be on Liddells and not see one. They heard Pheasant, Blackbird, Crow, Song thrush, Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Chaffinch, Willow warbler, Garden warbler, Great tit, Wren. Three Swallows flew over, the first Clare had seen over Liddells this year. Other identifications included a frog, jelly ear fungus, and several flower species. Maggie saw two deer as they jumped away over a wall. No hare appeared.

Later that morning Clare returned and saw two hares - they clearly have a sense of humour. She saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker twice at the hide. She planted a third Field Maple grown and donated by Mel. Now the saplings can have three-way conversations and encourage each other to grow.

Clare started a cowslip survey organised by Plantlife (if you have or know of cowslips nearby, go to Plantlife.org and consider joining in). Apparently cowslips are heterostylous - flowers which have style and anthers of different heights. Long style and low anthers = L-type, short style and high anthers = S-type. This is needed to prevent self-pollination and therefore ideally there will be an equal amount of both flowers in any location. An unequal balance might mean that the flowers are not doing so well. The survey began in Estonia in 2019, where a citizen science campaign, Looking for Cowslips began, in order to see if the landscape, grasslands in particular, was supporting the flowers’ wellbeing. The idea spread to Europe and the UK. The results showed that the balance was more skewed in smaller populations and in urban areas, indicating that human activity may be having a negative impact on the species. Grassland preservation and protection is imperative.

Clare was pleased to record that her survey of 100 plants showed 52 S-type and 48 L-type.

She also valued the experience as an example of ‘opsimathy’: Learning conducted or acquired late in life; an instance of this. Of course Liddells has been offering that for the last nine years.

Meanwhile John saw the pair of Mandarin ducks on the big pond again, however they flew away as soon as they became aware of him.

Listening and watching

‘[w}ild-scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale’ Robert Burns

‘Among the many pleasing purposes to which these favourite flowers are applied by children, none is prettier than the making of Cowslip Balls. The method, which may not be known to all my readers, is as follows:

The umbels are picked off as close as possible to the top of the main stalk, and from fifty to sixty are made to hang across a string stretched between the backs of two chairs. The flowers are then carefully pressed together, and the string tied tightly so as to collect them into a ball. Care should be taken to choose such heads or umbels only as have all the flowers open, or the surface of the ball will be uneven.’ Rev. C.A. Johns From Flowers of the Field, 1885

4th May

John has moved one of the cameras back to the middle of the Pit Wood. A hare showed up almost immediately. You can also hear just how much birdsong there is, even in the middle of the day.

5th May

John and Clare were joined at Liddells by three officers from the Northumberland Wildlife Trust to see how the site was doing (readers may recall that Clare and John intend to leave Liddells to the NWT), and in particular to see whether it might qualify for Local Nature Reserve (LNR) status. It is always excellent to walk round with people who bring expertise to the land and this was no exception. Duncan, Geoff and Alice - a curatorium: A group of curators (in various senses), typically acting as an advisory body, OED Word of the Day 18.05.22 - were very encouraging and although didn’t think that Liddells would yet have the required species richness over the whole site for LNR designation, there were pockets in which that richness was there or almost there. The amount of Adder’s Tongue Fern on the Meadow proved to be quite exciting, and the way Yellow Rattle has established. Duncan and Geoff puzzled over exactly which Lady’s Mantle they found in the Meadow, subsequently sending the identification Hairy Alchemilla: Alchemilla filicaulis subspecies Vestita. Geoff spotted moths mating on the outside of the hide, though wasn’t confidently able to identify them. As part of a general discussion at the end of the visit, Alice commented that the root plates exposed by trees felled by Storm Arwen are offering excellent opportunities for mining insects. More investigation called for.

Before he left, John saw Redpolls and Siskins, and a Greenfinch on one of the peanut feeders at the hide. Greenfinches have been notable for their absence for a while, however Tim had sent a photograph of one in his garden (half a mile away), this very day.

Pale Pinion moths - very many thanks to TrogTrogBlog Chris who responded to Clare’s identification plea. Chris added that this moth ‘is uncommon in the north but occurs regularly in Dumfries & Galloway (see http://www.dgmoths.org.uk/species/macro-moths/pale-pinion). Stewart Sexton sees it every year up the coast at Boulmer (https://boulmerbirder.blogspot.com/search/label/Pale%20Pinion?m=0). And this is the right time of year. This is the NBN atlas, not always the most reliable source’. As Chris pointed out, the moths are exquisitely disguised on the wood grain.

Redpolls, male on the left

Two female Redpolls

Particularly rosy male Redpoll and male Siskin

Greenfinch

To add to the colours - Bluebell

‘We call wild flowers common because of their quantity. But this is just where we strike the great difference between productions of Nature and the productions of Man. When we produce many samples of the same thing they are of poor quality and we speak of them as mass-produced. The mass productions of Nature do not fail at all in terms of quality. Take the bluebell. There indeed is quantity. Yet every year we are freshly struck by their quality. Only a flower-snob could fail to see that any one of those bells on the uplifted belfry is as delicate a construction as any tulip or rose. I will not say more beautiful, or less, for in this realm of flowers we are actually in the presence of abundant examples of - perfection. I think that perfection is the key to the emotion that flowers cause in us.’ John Stewart Collis From Down to Earth, Part II, The Wood, 1947

6th May

Another example of the camera light transfixing a badger. The camera has recorded badgers going away from the camera several times. This one seems stopped in its tracks.

7th May

The two cameras recorded deer activity at about the same time in different places in the Pit Wood. The old buck is anointing again. Three minutes later and a hundred yards away, the young buck and doe appear by the bottom of the stream. Six minutes after that the doe appears where the big buck had been. The old buck shows no signs of losing his winter coat, while the two youngsters’ summer coats are clearly on their way.

10th May

Saturday’s Guardian suggested that one of the ‘60 Ways to Turn Your World Upside Down’ (should you feel the need), would be to tune in to the Japanese concept of micro-seasons. Today is the start of the five day 蚯蚓出 Mimizu izuru, or Worms Surface. Others might feature later in the Blog as appropriate. Prepare to be upended.

John has been investigating all the different plants roe deer will eat. The young doe here is eating Water Avens.

13th May

Here the young doe is joined by the young buck. The camera has captured excellent close-ups of both. The young buck is no longer in velvet.

14 -16th May

John and Clare returned from a few days in Cumbria listening for and watching cuckoos. Derek, who farms next to Liddells, says there used to be cuckoos every year locally.

A pair of Greenfinches turned up at the feeders.

Clare inspected the bees having done so on Sunday 8th before she went away, when she spotted that one of the queens had lost her marking. Clare re-marked her, feeling pleased that this would make swarm management easier. Today she was amazed to see that the stronger colony had taken advantage of her absence and created several swarm cells. One way of hoping to prevent a swarm is to remove the queen and establish a small colony - the theory being that this mimics swarming. So Clare set about finding the queen. After going forwards and backwards through the frames four times she gave up. She returned in the afternoon with John hoping that two pairs of eyes would solve the problem. It didn’t, even after taking each frame out three times. She returned the next day and was relieved to see that the bees still hadn’t capped/closed the cells (capped swarm cells means the bees have already swarmed). Three more goes at finding the queen proved as unsuccessful as the previous seven. Much harrumphing ensued. Fortunately her old bee-keeping mentors responded very promptly to a plea for help and suggested an alternative method of swarm control. Clare geared up to do this on Monday but was thwarted by heavy rain and hoped the bees would be too.

17th May

Barry came to help Clare split the colony with queen cells. As Barry’s bees were not thriving, he and Clare took the opportunity to see if they could create two new colonies. First they identified two large queen cells and brushed all the bees off the frames where these were; these frames went into a new brood box; all except one of the brood frames were added to this box having shaken off all the bees (so that the queen remained in the old brood box). It was important to check that this remaining frame had eggs from which the bees could create a new queen cell in case the queen swarmed anyway. The new brood box was placed on top of the old one with a queen excluder between them, and left till next day. The theory is that the nurse bees will move up to look after the brood. Next morning the new brood box, which had plenty of bees in it, was removed; the two frames with queen cells were put into two nucleus boxes (smaller than a regular brood box and suitable for raising new colonies); the remaining brood frames were shared between the boxes. Syrup was added in feeders. The nucs were then left for a few days. Any flying bees in the nucs would make their way back to the old hive.

18th May

Keith came to help Clare with the annual breeding bird survey. Clare is always surprised by the birds they don’t hear, and rather disappointed that they then can’t be included in the count, however as Keith says, this is only an audio equivalent of a snapshot - it could be repeated every hour on the same day, and the results might vary. One of the highlights was watching a Chiffchaff go in and out of brambles near the wall, suggesting there was a nest there.

19th May

Meanwhile the territorial disputes between the bucks continues - the old buck is captured marking again. John says it is unusual for bucks to share the same territory, although it can happen when the stronger animal doesn’t consider the other to be a threat, and will tolerate its presence.

20th May

Keith has often expressed his surprise that there have been no Whitethroats on Liddells, since the land offers ideal habitat for them - plenty of low vegetation like scrubs, bushes and brambles. Last year Clare thought she had seen one in the Scrub, however with no further sightings, concluded it must have been wishful seeing and more likely a Garden Warbler. Today she was thrilled to see a Whitethroat hopping about in the raspberries and brambles close to the hide, close and visible enough for there to be no doubt about identification, and thought that maybe she hadn’t been mistaken last year after all. She dared not move and scare the bird away, so couldn’t reach for her phone to take a photo.

The old doe appeared in the Pit Wood looking decidedly pregnant. Roe does have their young between mid-May and mid-June. In Northumberland the births tend to be at the later end of this period. This is the doe that had triplets last year so it will be exciting to see what young appear this year.

21st May

Clare had to inspect the second of her hives today and again found queen cells - the evidence the colony is preparing to swarm. This time she decided against endless searches for the queen and repeated the splitting procedure. As it was early morning, she was able to return later in the day and move the new brood box into its new position.

And on the theme of boxes, a Greater Spotted Woodpecker has been showing interest in J2 where Great tits are raising a brood. John has made a metal cover with a smaller hole for the box to deter the intruder.

Clare began her annual thistle cull on the Meadow, removing 106 plants on this first go. No doubt there will be more.

Clare also saw the first damselflies out on the Big Pond. They were Large Reds and too far away to photograph.

22nd May

Clare returned to the apiary to check on progress with the first split. She discovered the queen present in the original hive and laying well. Phew. When she opened the nucleus however, the queen cell was open, so the queen had already hatched. Clare went through the frames extremely cautiously and destroyed the one further queen cell that the bees had made. This nucleus will now be in purdah for at least three weeks to allow for the queen to mature, go on mating flights and start laying eggs.

23rd - 24th May

There is much feeding activity at both J1 and J2. Clare is hoping the trail camera on J2 will capture the fledglings leaving the nest. So far it has recorded the earliest food delivery at 4.46am, and the latest at 20.37pm. This article from the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology), gives more detail about the birds and breeding, noting that an excess of 10,000 caterpillars might be delivered to a typical brood. Clare has noted that parent birds from both J1 and J2 take food from the hide feeders and deliver it to the nest boxes. The birds also remove material from the nest to keep it clean. Both birds are involved in managing the brood.

25th May

A badger makes its way through the Pit Wood and returns 12 minutes later.

27th May

Clare went for an evening’s watching, hoping to see the Whitethroat but saw a Spotted Flycatcher instead. She also saw a bat in The Pit Wood however it was too fast to make any clearer identification.

28th - 29th May

The camera in the Pit Wood, which John is hoping will capture the doe and any kids some time soon, shows that the doe is still pregnant; the older buck ignores the branch he usually marks.

It was time to check on the bees after the second split. There were a couple of new queen cells in the newly created brood box so Clare took one down and took the other to Barry to see if it would hatch successfully and provide a new queen for his failing colony. The original hive had no evidence of a laying queen so she may have swarmed after the split; it was puzzling that the remaining bees hadn’t raised another queen cell from the eggs left behind, so Clare took a frame with eggs from the thriving colony and will check again in a few days time to see if the bees have created what they need. ‘Swarm control’ is a phrase created by beekeepers to help them think they are ahead of the bees’ game. Hmmm.

Clare visited the pond again to find dozens of damselflies in the air. She managed to get a couple of shots with her phone though they are not of great quality. The most interesting was seeing a newly emerged damselfly. It clung to the rush but would move to the far side of it every time Clare tried to get close with her phone. TrogTrogBlog Chris - another of the curatorium - suggested waving an outstretched hand to one side can help to get the damselfly to move round a bit more - as Clare dropped her phone in the pond on the first attempt, she is not that keen to try again.

On 26th May, in Nature Writing for Every Day of the Year, ed. McMorland Hunter, there is a passage from Our Village, by Mary Russell Mitford, 1824:

‘Walking along these meadows one bright sunny afternoon, a year or two back, and rather late in the season, I had an opportunity of noticing a curious circumstance in natural history. Standing close to the edge of the stream, I remarked a singular appearance on a large tuft of flags. It looked like bunches of flowers, the leaves of which seemed dark, yet transparent, intermingled with brilliant tubes of bright blue or shining green. On examining this phenomenon more closely, it turned out to be several clusters of dragon-flies, just emerged from their deformed chrysalis state, and still torpid and motionless from the wetness of their filmy wings. Half an hour later we returned to the spot and they were gone.’

Mating Large Red Damselflies - usually the first of the Odonata to emerge each spring

Adult male Azure Damselfly - TrogTrogBlog’s Chris says you can see the coenagrion spur on the side of the thorax. (Yes, Clare had to look up coenagrian too.) Chris suggested this, from www.odonata.org.uk is a great help to tell the difference from a Common Blue.

Teneral (of, relating to, or constituting a state of the imago of an insect immediately after moulting during which it is soft and immature in colouring) female azure damselfly

30th May

Tims sent this article about Brimstone butterflies in the north-east. Apparently they are prospering. Clare is pleased that the Alder Buckthorns Tim and Clare donated are now in leaf.

31st May

There are fewer videos of hares this month and John and Clare have seen fewer hares, although they are still about and Clare saw a small one on the Top Grazing which would seem to be one of this year’s young. It may be the adults are fully occupied in looking after them.

Next month is the Wildlife Trust’s annual challenge to everyone to do one wild thing every day throughout the month. John and Clare hope Blog readers will be inspired to join in.

April - otterly surprising

1st April

Clare is pleased with her choice of a different site for one of the trail cameras. The hares are the first to appear in the footage.

3rd April

The Blackthorn is at last in blossom by the hives.

Clare was delighted to see not only a flock of fieldfares behind the hives today, but a Lesser Redpoll and a Siskin on the nyjer seed feeders at the hide. These latter two species have been noticeable by their absence from Liddells for many months. The partridge pair were on the Wetland.

John completed a side on the log shed and Clare set about weeding the steps up to the Point of View.

The male heron appears to be indulging in open water swimming.

4th April

The trail camera records deer in early morning snow. The big buck is captured scraping vigorously at the ground again, however this time he is making a couch. Having made his bed, he is seen lying on it later.

The male heron seems to be viewing the morning snow on the Crag.

Titmice seem to be attempting to use one of the trail cameras as a nesting site.

There were two Siskins on the feeders today, a male and a female.

7th April

The big buck is still marking his territory, this time near where the younger buck was captured in footage three days earlier.

Clare was delighted that she trusted her hunch and went to Primroseside in the Pit Wood. The primroses were out in abundance. She also found a patch of Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage in the Pit Wood that she had not noticed before. Read more about it here.

8th April

No disrespect to pheasants, however they don’t seem to manifest many signs of high intelligence.

9th April

Siskins are on the feeders daily now, though the Redpoll hasn’t been seen again. There is moss in boxes 2, 3 and J1 (Juno’s first box).

Today seemed to be tadpole hatching day on Liddells and there were clusters of what looked to be hundreds of tadpoles emerging in the Roadside and the Big ponds.

Tim and Jane kindly donated two Alder Buckthorn whips which Clare planted on the damp edge to the glade in the Pit Wood. Tim and Jane chose this species to replace trees damaged in their garden by Storm Arwen. The trees are a favourite of the Brimstone butterfly. Tim and Jane hope that with their trees and the ones on Liddells, there could be a local Brimstone corridor. Read more about the Alder Buckthon here.

Clare moved one of the trail cameras to below the hide in the Pit Wood and was delighted to see several clips of hares and deer. One of the clips shows a doe couching.

10th April

As well as a pair of Siskins, there were three Tree Sparrows around the feeders. John spent time there with his camera.

While Clare and John remain delighted at the diversity of species appearing on Liddells, it is noticeable that bird numbers, apart from the titmice, are dropping. This is in line with national, indeed global records, and dismaying.

Clare finished weeding the Point of View steps.

John thinks he may have found a form on the Wetland. Clare has set up her pop-up hide to see if she can verify this.

Clare and John watched the older doe, younger doe and young buck, and a hare all on the Top Grazing at the same time this afternoon.

Tree sparrow - note the chestnut head and black cheek spot, which differentiate it from the House sparrow

Very red-breasted Robin

Dunnock

Male Siskin with seed in its beak

Male and female Siskin

Bold Bluetit sticking its neck out

Looking in…

…and looking out

13th April

The Willow warblers are back and Clare has heard Blackcaps singing. She saw a flock of eight Tree sparrows near the feeders, which was encouraging after the comment about numbers dropping.

The herons have not been seen so often on the pond camera, perhaps because they have eaten all the frogs, however this one is successful in finding food. (PS no more herons appeared this month on the trail camera after today.)

Clare spent a couple of evenings in her pop-up hide and saw no evidence of hares near what might be a form, however she saw six deer the first evening (more than Clare and John thought were regulars on Liddells), two on the second, three hares on the first and one on the second evening, and on the second evening watched a Willow Warbler working the territory just in front of the hide for about fifteen minutes, while a Marsh tit was almost close enough to touch in a hawthorn next to her hide.

16th April

Another otter on one of the trail cameras! The camera is pointing west along a path that follows what might well have in the past been the route of a stream, and joins up with the stream from the spring. Following a suggestion from Chris (TrogTrogBlog), Clare has logged this and the earlier sighting with theotternetwork.co.uk which surveys otters in the north-east.

18th April

Spring flowers are emerging - Clare and Pat saw Primroses, Cowslips, Violets, Wild strawberries and Wood anemone in flower today. The Wood anemones are a new discovery and were close to the Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage, so they might all have appeared since more light was let into that part of the Pit Wood.

Clare and Pat also saw a Great Spotted woodpecker, five Siskins and a Redpoll among the birds visiting the feeders.

John fixed the roof on to the new log shed.

A fox decides not to proceed, probably because of the red light on the trail camera.

20th April

Snake’s head fritillary are out on the Wildflower meadow and Clare is particularly pleased because she grew some of them from seed she had collected.

Clare went to photograph the Wood anemones in the Pit Wood only to find that they had vanished. This evening, browsing through a new book John is reading, about a Frenchman who spent seven years immersing himself in nature and living with wild roe deer, Clare read that ‘[h]ighly poisonous to other herbivores, wood anemones are eaten in large quantities by roe deer in the spring. Since they have no gall bladder, the toxin has no effect on them, apart from preventing certain illnesses’. So there may not be any more of these flowers on Liddells. Clare wonders if this has been the fate of the Winter aconite too.

21st April

A pair of mallards are captured mating again on the trail camera - they appear to be in a bit of a spin.

22nd April

The young buck and one of the young does take refreshment by the pond. Later the young buck appears on the second camera and a closer view shows that he is now in tatters.

23rd April

Clare heard a warbler singing and began her annual is-it-a-Blackcap-or-a-Garden-warbler challenge. She decided it was a Blackcap whereupon the bird, which was indeed a Blackcap, flew onto the gorse in front of her. As if by way of reward.

25th April

One of the pleasures of moving the trail cameras to different sites is discovering how many of the creatures on Liddells cover so much of the area. Here a Jay appears, as do the Partridge pair and a badger. As with the fox a few days earlier, the badger seems to be suspicious of the red light on the camera and changes route.

27th - 29th April

Dave has begun bringing logs from the Top Strip and the Orchard to the log shed where they can be stacked and dried.

Clare checked the hives again and discovered that one of them had eight frames of capped brood, which leaves the bees very little space for stores and more brood, and can prompt them to swarm. Clare quickly added a super and crossed all available digits.

The young buck’s winter coat is beginning to go.

30th April

One of the young does is losing her winter coat.

A last hare of the month (Clare and John saw two on the Top Grazing while on Liddells today). For a while now Clare and John have seen at least one hare on every visit, and more often that not, two or three.

To end the month and celebrate spring, John has taken a photograph of cherry blossom in the Top Strip. Enjoy the hanami.

October - Autumn arrives

1st October

Forty Suffolk ewes arrived to eat the grass off the Top Gazing which has grown substantially since being cut for hay. The Suffolk Sheep Society’s website says that the ‘Suffolk is the flag-ship domestic breed in the British Isles and is recognised as the leading terminal sire on a variety of commercial ewes to produce top quality prime lamb. The breed has been in existence since the late 1700s.’

Digesting in the sun

2nd October

Twenty ewes arrived on the Wildflower Meadow. Synchronously Word Perfect today refers to ‘aftermath’, now used metaphorically, however originally meaning ‘an ‘after-mowing’: a second crop or new growth of grass after the first had been harvested.’ So all sixty sheep are dealing with the aftermath.

John has finished the plumbing for the necessarium.

6th October

‘ “Most people look at a forest and say, ‘Here are trees and there is dirt.’ They see nothing of interest unless someone takes them by the hand. I am astonished at how little most people can manage to see.” ‘ (from Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver)

John manages to see plenty, including the first Fieldfare of the year. They arrive in flocks with Redwings. Clare was delighted that Liddells is on a par with Ambridge - Jim Lloyd heard the first Redwing on this same day.

Marsh Tit

Female Chaffinch

This male Chaffinch has been ringed

According to Word Perfect, the Japanese have the expression kasa koso for the rustling sound of dry leaves.

7th October

The ewes did a great job on the Wildflower Meadow and have been moved to join the Suffolks on the Top Grazing.

9th October

John and Clare noticed a Goldfinch near the hide that seemed to be struggling although it was feeding and able to fly.

John and Clare were amused by the trail camera footage below.

10th October

While John added stronger stakes to some of the larches in the verge, Clare visited the hide and found that the Goldfinch had died there. Clare noticed that it was ringed so John sent the details to EURING. A reply came through very quickly:

Dear John Halliday

Thank you for taking the time to report to us details of a bird ring you found. Information about this bird and its movements is given below.

Ringing Scheme: London Ring Number: AJK9171 Species of bird: Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

This bird was ringed by S C Enderby as age definitely hatched during current year, sex unknown on 21-Nov-2019 time unknown at near Acomb, Northumberland, UK

OS Map reference NY9365 accuracy 0, - co-ordinates 54deg 58min N -2deg -6min W accuracy 0.

It was found on 09-Oct-2021 time unknown at near Hexham, Northumberland, UK

OS Map reference NY9269 accuracy 0, - co-ordinates 55deg 0min N -2deg -7min W accuracy 0.

Finding condition: Dying

Finding circumstances: Found Sick, Definite Single cause NOT Known

Extra Information: Sickly. Unable to fly well. Dead the next day.

It was found 688 days after it was ringed, 4 km from the ringing site, direction NNW.

Bird Ringing in Britain & Ireland is organised by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). Each year over 900,000 birds are ringed by over 2,500 highly trained bird ringers, most of whom are volunteers. They follow a careful training process that can take several years to complete to ensure that they have the necessary skills to catch and ring birds. The bird’s welfare is always the most important consideration during ringing activities.

Ringing began over 100 years ago to study the movements of birds. While it continues to generate information about movements, it also allows us to study how many young birds leave the nest and survive to breed as adults, as well as how many adults live from year to year and how many birds disperse to different breeding sites. Collection of this information helps us to understand why bird populations increase or decrease − vital information for conservation. Details of how many birds have been caught and where and when they have been found are available on the BTO website at www.bto.org/ringing-report.

Some interesting facts discovered from ringing data....

Oldest bird – Manx shearwater, 50 yrs 11 months

Furthest travelled – Arctic Tern from Wales to Australia 18,000 km

Strangest recovery – Osprey ring found in stomach of a crocodile in The Gambia!

Many thanks again for reporting this bird and contributing to the work of the Ringing Scheme. If you would like to find out more about the BTO please check out our website www.bto.org.

With best wishes

The Ringing Team

11th - 12th October

Having established that there are indeed three kids this year, they were seen again on the trail camera in the Scrub. The next night the doe went through. John says you can see not only what fine condition she is in, but her two gorget patches. They are on the underside of her neck, show that she is an older doe and help in identification.

15th & 19th October

A fox appears twice on the Scrub camera.

22nd - 23rd October

Footage of hares always proves irresistible. The Scrub camera recorded one passing through several times on these two days; on 22nd at 17.49 and 21.46, and on 23rd at 09.50, 13.49 and 14.05. Of course they may all be different hares. Below is one piece of footage from the selection, the white tail with its black tip and the black tips to its ears showing quite distinctly.

The sheep were taken off the Top Grazing. Again they have done a splendid job in taking the grass down ready for Spring growth.

The Jay is a bird often heard but not so often seen, or maybe you see a flash of the white rump as it flies away. The Woodland Trust describes the Jay as ‘a highly intelligent loudmouth’. (woodlandtrust.org.uk) In its Latin name, garrulus glandarius, the ‘garrulus’ means chattering, babbling or noisy. You can listen here. The whole name can be translated as ‘babbler of the acorns.’ The bird hides acorns for later consumption and it is thought that the ones whose whereabouts have been forgotten can be credited with the growth and spread of oak trees since the last Ice Age. In the footage below, it is unclear whether the Jay is burying or seeking to retrieve acorns, however it is great to have such a clear view of the bird.

A badger appears in the Pit Wood, probably rootling for worms.

24th October

The Scrub proves to be a popular foraging ground for the newly arrived Redwings.

26th October

The trail camera reveals time and again just how watchful and alert the wildlife is all the time. Below you will see a rabbit standing on its hind legs, possibly to see if the surrounding area is safe. Although footage of grey squirrels doesn’t make it into the Blog, the sound of a squirrel chattering is quite dramatic - a subsequent piece of footage (not included), suggests that it is the pheasant that is the source of agitation. Having never seen a kid squeaking before this year, John is delighted that the trail camera is offering so many examples of this phenomenon. Of course saying earlier this month that Jays are rarely seen was asking for contradiction. Not hiding at all. The badger is back - Clare fancifully imagines its satnav saying, “Rerootle, rerootle"!”

28th October

It would seem as though roe deer experience sibling rivalry.

The pheasants have their own back on the hare.

The third piece of footage is calling out for a caption. Any offers….?

29th October

A trio of videos of birds foraging in the Scrub. While Redwings and Titmice share the space, the Pheasants seem to claim it as theirs.

30th October

When Clare went to collect the camera discs today she saw and heard far more Blackbirds than usual - the overwintering visitors have arrived. There was also a large flock of Fieldfares in the Orchard. Sadly the camera has shown that one of the doe kids is limping badly and has lost condition. She hasn’t been seen with the adult doe and other two kids for a while. The young buck displays a passing interest in the bird feeder in the Scrub.

May - Eeeegs!

To appreciate fully and enunciate correctly the title of this month’ s Blog post, Clare and John refer you to the instructional video below, made on Easter Sunday 2019. Mathilda, a theatre practitioner suggests readers pay particular attention to the demonstration of the pantomime leg.

2nd May

A female blackbird is sitting on a nest in the old pony shelter. The nest is next to the one used last year and is bigger. There is a heap of unused nest material on the ground under the nest. The trail camera has just about captured the bird on the nest in spite of the poor light.

John began constructing a bridge over the stream from the spring in order to create a route for quad bike and trailer when removing wood from the Pit Wood.

John and Clare planted several trays of wildflower plugs grown from seeds given out at Juno’s third birthday party. They had grown the seeds at home and then preserved the resulting plants/seeds. The plugs were planted round the shepherd’s hut and on the Meadow.

The 2021 Blackbird nest dwarfing the 2020 prototype

3rd May

Although yesterday was International Dawn Chorus Day, Clare rose early this morning for a Liddells’ dawn chorus as her choir have traditionally sung in the Hexham bandstand on the morning of the first May Bank Holiday every year. The Thrushes nearly drowned out all the other birdsong. Most striking was the roe doe which seemed to be commenting on Clare’s early morning adventure. Clare was rewarded for her efforts with a view of a male Redpoll, a female Siskin and a Goldfinch of indeterminate sex, sharing a nyjer seed feeder.

5th - 9th May

Clare discovered a patch of Marsh Marigold in flower by the Alphabet bridge and Lady’s Smock out on the Wetland. Two Redpolls appeared on the nyjer seed feeder. Clare and John planted some English bluebells in the Pit Wood.

John completed the new bridge in the Pit Wood. Clare was quick to name it the Quadrilateral Bridge.

The trail camera has captured a roe buck in the act of anointing and scraping to mark his territory, and does in the process of losing their winter coats for the more richly red-brown summer coat.

The Scrub is also part of a badger’s territory. Occasionally something will trigger the trail camera but is too quick to appear in footage, however delightful snatches of birdsong are recorded. In the clip below you can hear Blackcap and Willow Warbler.

Molly-blobs (Marsh marigold) (OED Word of the Day 20.11.20)

Lady’s smock, aka Cuckoo flower, Mayflower or Milkmaids

The Quadrilateral Bridge

10th May

John decided to mark his birthday, as last year, with a nest box survey. He and Clare saw two hares and a Tawny Owl during this activity. Two Greylag geese were flying over the Wetland. More boxes have been used than in previous years with signs of activity in 18 of the 33 boxes. Two appear to have wrens’ nests. Eight boxes have eggs/birds sitting. Not all the started nests will be used as males will make or start building several nests from which the female will choose one in which to lay. The Barn owl seems to have decided against the box on the Wetland.

Clare noticed Stitchwort and Forget-me-not out in the Top Strip.

11th - 15th May

It’s never anything other than a delight to see a hare. This one pauses for refreshment in the Scrub. Clare heard then saw a Whitethroat singing in the Scrub. This is a first for Liddells. John and Clare hope it will stay as they are faithful to their territory.

Clare found Wood rush in flower on the Top Grazing.

As does the Thrush (Chiffchaff and Chaffinch singing in the background).

Field Wood-rush: luzula campestris, also known as Good Friday Grass and Sweep’s Broom

15th May

Another bird first - after several visits to the feeders from a male Greenfinch this Spring, John and Clare were delighted to see a pair today. The male was ringed though not with a ring that could be read with binoculars.

16th May

Keith (HWKNEAN) generously offered another annual breeding bird survey. Numbers/species proved to be pretty consistent with previous years with the delightful addition of a male Redstart in an Oak below the bee hives, quite close to where Keith, John and Clare had seen a family of Redstarts on the same survey a few years ago. Keith also noticed Hairy Wood-rush: luzula pilosa, in flower in the Top Strip. The survey can only give a partial assessment of bird numbers. This year, for example, Coal tits were noticeable by their absence during the survey, however many appear regularly at the feeders. A summary of the numbers appears on the Surveys page of the website.

The trail camera shows the deer losing yet more of their winter coats.

17th

The trail camera has revealed not a new kid, but a new buck on the block. John says it is likely to be a yearling displaced by its mother. The mother will be concentrating on this year’s offspring, due any day, and won’t want last year’s youngsters to be hanging around.

18th May

The Thrush in the Scrub has foraged with success.

19th May

There is a deer call that John has known about but never heard in the field. He even has an artificial call that replicates the sound. The squeak is the sound made by a newly born kid to highlight its whereabouts to its mother. No kid has yet been seen on Liddells this year. The deer in the footage below is a buck, but not the animal making the sound, which is offstage but close by. John and Clare look forward to seeing the source of the squeak.

20th May

Readers may remember John’s learned comments on footage of the buck on Liddells in last month’s Blog explaining how a young buck holds its head higher than an older one, and has a thinner neck, suggesting the buck in question is young, the footage below seems to suggest the buck has aged rather quickly. The buck’s neck appears thickset and it is certainly holding its head quite low.

John has given himself more time with his camera and is now hoping to photograph wildflowers as they come into bloom on Liddells. Birds remain photogenic.

Perennial cornflower

Cow parsley

Bugle

Redpolls

Yellowhammer…

…singing

21st May

John has provided more evidence of the popularity of Clare’s peanut butter bird paste among the Liddells avian community.

Long-tailed tit with peanut

22nd May

John and Clare freed a well-established donated Oak from its cage. They also planted two newly donated Oaks from Sue D, one of which has been grown by a friend of hers from an acorn from the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest. The wire caging somewhat compromises the photographs, however readers can be assured the saplings are well protected.

Clare cut Yellow Rattle turves to give to Keith and to plant round the shepherd’s hut. John made a bird feeders post for the shepherd’s hut enclosure.

Lady’s mantle is in flower near the hives. Clare noticed a single lady’s smock in flower on the island in the Big Pond. Eyebright has flowered on the Top Grazing.

Lady’s mantle

Eyebright

23rd May

John and Clare carried out the second nest box survey. This time 13 boxes had either birds sitting or hatched chicks. The Blackbird is still sitting on the nest in the shed. You can see a summary of both of this year’s surveys here.

Shuna, Peter and family visited Liddells. Eliot and Nicholas enjoyed seeing how the trees they had helped to plant last year had grown. Clare found Garlic mustard growing in the Pit Wood, a plant she cannot recall seeing on Liddells before. Sweet woodruff is out on the far north-west corner of the Pit Wood.

Garlic mustard

Sweet woodruff

24th May

John saw swallows over the Top Grazing for the first time this year. They have returned about a month later than last year.

John and Clare left the trail camera focussed on a nest box where Blue tits had chicks. The footage showed that between 08.20 and 18.52, the adult birds made 357 visits to the box. Visits lasted approximately 10 seconds. The time between visits was usually between 2-3 minutes, although there were 12 gaps that varied between 5 and 14 minutes. Presumably this was when the adult birds were taking a breather and foraging for their own food.

25-26th May

Mel has kindly donated another Field Maple that he had grown. John and Clare planted near the first one on the Top Grazing, reusing the fencing from the uncaged Oak in the Top Strip.

John and Clare are used to finding smashed Pheasants’ eggs on Liddells, however there have been more broken eggs from different nest, pointing to raids by corvids.

One of three broken duck eggs found in the Scrub and near the Spoil Heaps.. Maybe the Mallards had nested on the Wetland after all. John saw a pair fly off from near the Big Pond today

Pheasant nest on the Wetland with far fewer eggs than is usual

Song thrush egg (found on the ground and placed on a fence post for a better photograph. It is 2.5-3 cms)

Pigeon egg (3.4 cms)

27th May

It is time for the annual attempt to unmake mountains out of all the molehills on the Top Grazing. John and Clare worked hard at this and were able to use some of the soil to fill the craters made by removing boulders earlier this year.

Clare replaced the warning signs near the Aconites in the Pit Wood and was rather pleased with the effect of the canes marking each plant.

More wildflowers are coming into flower.

Tim met John while he was doing his weekly butterfly survey and suggested that John keep his eyes open for Pearl-bordered fritillaries. Sure enough, John saw one on a stone in the Top Grazing. No camera to hand.

Ribwort plantain

Wild garlic

Water crowfoot with Broad-leaved pondweed below

28th May

Clare heard a Mistle thrush singing in the Top Strip. It sounded very close however remained out of sight.

29th May

Oak-apple Day. ‘Oak apple’ is today’s OED Word of the Day : ‘A roughly spherical type of oak gall; spec. the reddish spongy gall formed in leaf-buds by the developing larvae of a gall wasp (family Cynipidae: in Europe Biorhiza pallida; in America Amphibolips confluenta).’

30th May

Chris B arrived with a digger to help make a couple of tracks safer for quad bike use. The path near the spring was particularly difficult as it is almost permanently wet. Even Hal, who has years of experience driving up muddy hills in Classic Trials and winning many awards for so doing, found this one tough. The trick to his success - “You just have to commit!” Chris may have solved the problem by digging out a ditch that should take the water away from the track.

Chris also made short shrift of moving the boulders off the Top Grazing. John said he could have spent all day watching Chris manipulate the boulders with such apparent delicacy.

John decided this was to be the flail mower’s first outing. He was really pleased with how much of the paths he was able to mow in a much less time than it would have taken with the strimmer.

Clare completed the molehill flattening. While working she noticed that there are more patches of Daisies and Common Field Speedwell and many more Lady’s smock plants than in previous years. It could be the effect of cutting for hay followed by grazing last year.

One man went to flail, went to flail a pathway

Flailed

Ditched

Red campion - the first of the plug plants from Juno’s third birthday seeds to come into flower

Rowan blossom

Water Avens

April - not at all taxing

3rd April

Clare saw the first Dandelion of the year out on the Meadow. Juno managed to find all the eggs Clare had concealed. Maybe the spotty paper wrapping made them easier to see.

4-6th April

The middle path through the Pit Wood proves as popular as ever with local fauna. Chris Wren says that the badger is musking - marking territory.

8-9th April

John and Dave began working on a quad bike friendly entrance to the Top Strip.

Sue D donated several Water Figwort plants and began planting some by the Big Pond.

10th April

Hal, Beth, Juno and marshmallows got toasty warm with a fire in the story-telling circle.

A pair of Mallard seem to be considering setting up residence on or near the Big Pond.

Clare planted the rest of the Water Figwort and Clare and John added twelve Purging Buckthorn hedging plants into the developing hedge in the Orchard.

11/12th April

Clare and John have started to create a pond in their garden. This has produced hugs amounts of surplus soil which John and Dave are bagging up, taking to Liddells and using to build up the roadway on the Wetland.

John spotted tadpoles in the roadway pond - a great relief as there was a risk the frogspawn would have been killed off by the cold weather. The ducks are probably feasting on any tadpoles remaining in the Big Pond.

There appears to have been a pigeon social in the Pit Wood.

17th April

After starting work on creating an extension to the east-west fence along the north edge of the Wetland, John had another excursion with his camera.

The ducks have flown - probably having exhausted the tadpole supply. Unfortunately with no access to expenses the ducks had to go without a duck house to entice them to stay.

Wetland fencing 2.JPG
Hare J photo.JPG

Bank vole

“Clare said it was rude to stand on the table.”

18th April

Anticipating summer, John built a shelf onto the outside of the shepherd’s hut in the hope that a swallow might be tempted to nest there. He saw a Woodcock heading for cover near the signs to the hide, clearly taking the signage literally. Cowslips are out on the Meadow.

19th April

Clare opened her hives for the first time this year and was dismayed. One hive had very few bees and no brood. This had been a weakish colony going into the winter and Clare suspects the recent period of very cold and then wet weather proved too much. The second colony was full of bees and had three to four frames of brood. They were quiet on the frames and clearly ok. The last colony had a lot of very bad tempered bees, probably because there did not appear to be a laying queen. Clare will add a frame with eggs in the hope that the bees will create a new queen.

Clare’s mood was improved by seeing more footage of a Tawny Owl.

20th April

John decided to have an evening visit to Liddells and saw about six hares on the Top Grazing.

21st April

Hares are the most frequently captured creature in trail camera footage. They usually seem to be taking their time on the path, however these two are showing quite a turn of speed.

22nd April

Clare had her first drive of the quad bike and loved it. Using it certainly speeds up getting about on Liddells. The badger too seems to be putting on a spurt. As it is going in the opposite of its usual direction, perhaps it had forgotten something.

25th April

Clare and Barry teamed up to look at Barry’s hives and Clare came away with a frame of larvae and eggs to offer to her colony that looked as if it would survive with a new queen.

Violets are out on the Wetland and in the Pit Wood.

26th April

John and Dave tackled some of the fallen trees in the Pit Wood and John started making a quad bike-friendly track so the the wood can be brought out.

In the absence of Willow and accompanying music, the buck has taken to stripping the raspberries. John says he is a very fine specimen and a youngster - his antlers remain quite thin and his head is held high. With older deer, the head droops more as they walk.

27th April

John saw Siskins and a Greenfinch on the feeders - firsts this year for both species.

A fox appears very interested in the trail camera.

29th April

Clare bimbled round Liddells (OED Word of the Day 01.04.21 ‘bimble:’: to move at a leisurely pace, esp. on foot, to amble, wander). She added Oxlips, Cherry blossom, Bluebells, Wood sorrel, Soft rush and Wild strawberry to plants that have come into flower this year.

30th April

Mel donned his waders and planted more pond plants. The female mallard was on the Big Pond when he arrived and he found more goose faeces and a pair of Greylags were circling over the land. John and Mel removed more large stones from potential quad bike + flail mower paths.

Clare and John saw three hares on a last-of-the-month visit to Liddells today. Clare was delighted that Siskins visited the feeders while she was there. There has been a thrush singing frequently very close to the hide recently. Clare and John like to think it is the one captured by the trail camera.

Marsh tit - back…

…to front

March - screeching with delight

1st March

The trail camera captured footage of a hare sniffing. Sniffing, or olfactory sampling, is integral to olfactory perception, and necessary and sufficient for generating neural activity in the olfactory area of the brain. At this time of year the hare may be sniffing for evidence of a mate or a rival.

Dave came to help John with logs. The log shed now has two full rows drying. Clare planted more Snowdrops in the Pit Wood and went in search of a Daffodil to mark St David’s Day.

3rd March

Mel came to help plant Willow whips and move brash from the Top Strip into the Quarry.

7th March

The trail camera captured hares again - the three clips are only minutes apart. More sniffing - this time a fox who may well be hoping for more to eat.

After a long absence, a Goldfinch appeared near the feeders again. Clare and John think the nyjer seed had become wet and started to ferment and the birds avoided it. Clare found nesting material in some of the bird boxes.

9th March

Nesting material in more boxes.

10th March

Mel returned for more work on Willows and with brash. As he was planting in the Stank (the boggy area of the Wetland below the Crag, newly named after John had come across a reference to The Great Stank in a book about deer), Mel noticed goose droppings. This may indicate a goose was looking for a nesting site.

11th March

Clare spotted the first of this year’s frogspawn in the Roadside Pond.

15th March

Not only is today the Ides of March, but, according to Word Perfect, it is the festival of Anna Parenna, a Roman goddess of renewal, life and the returning year (hence the word ‘perennial’). Clare and John refixed a nest box that had been used by bumblebees last year, sowed seeds and transplanted Snowdrops round the Shepherd’s Hut, spotted a Ladybird and found a very large amount of frogspawn in the Big Pond and more in the Roadside Pond. And all without Anna Parenna’s annual sacrificial expulsion of an old man or criminal in a ritual designed to purify. There were no criminals to hand and Clare really needs John’s help.

7 spot ladybird, Coccinella septempunctata: overwintering sites include wood edges and under tree bark

More frogspawn in the Roadside pond

This gives an idea of just how big the frogspawn patch is

16th March

The buck has appeared again on the trail camera. John says that you can see that the buck has started fraying the velvet of its antlers - they look less smooth and dark. The footage of the hare listening is rather charming.

17th - 20th March

St Patrick’s Day and John wore green. He usually does. He and Mel planted three Yews in the Pit Wood. The Yews are part of a number of trees that John was able to buy as a result of selling some of his books in a ‘Books for Trees’ project.

In Word Perfect Susie Dent points out that March is the month for World Book Day and writes about how the history of the book is intertwined with trees in ways that extend beyond the production of paper. ‘The original word, in Old English, was spelt boc, ‘beech’, for it was on the bark on that tree, or upon beechwood itself, that runes were cast and inscriptions engraved; to this day the German for a letter of the alphabet is Buchstabe, ‘beechstaff’. ‘Folio’, which today refers to a book of a very large size, is from the Latin for ‘leaf’…It seems entirely appropriate that the tree - whose name shares an ancient root with ‘true’, because truth is loyalty, steadfastness, and solidity - was the birthplace for books.’

It is not evident that the hares are experiencing vernalagnia (see below) however John and Clare hope they may be.

P1010964.JPG

John added barley straw to the Big Pond in the hope that it will help counteract algae growth.

21st March

Susie Dent again - on this day in Word Perfect she offers ‘vernalagnia’: a recently coined word that combines the Latin vernalis, ‘relating to spring’, and lagnia, ‘lust’; she refers to the beginning of spring as a time when ‘buds are erumpent’ with vigorous growth. Yesterday was the Spring Equinox and today Clare heard the first Chiffchaffs of the year calling in both the Scrub and the Pit Wood. (Last year she heard them first on 17th March.) Clare took the mouseguards off the beehives as there are so many bees flying now they will be able to defend themselves from hungry vermin looking for a quick sugar fix. Clare found the first Primroses in flower in the Pit Wood.

22nd March

Mel and John took to planting again - three Wild Service trees - part of the ‘Books for Trees’ sale. The Wild Service tree, Sorbus torminalis, is now quite rare and can be an indicator of ancient woodland, growing with Oak and Ash. It is hermaphrodite and the fruits are sometimes called ‘chequers’; the tree is a favourite with wildlife like the Wood pigeon whose gut softens the seeds for propagation. A good service to provide.

26th March

John saw a mallard duck and drake take off from the Big Pond. The badger pauses on his usual route through the Pit Wood, having no idea he was being watched.

27th March

John points out that the buck’s antlers are now clean of velvet. Clare and John hope not many saplings were harmed in the process.

28-29th March

Even though it is only a brief glimpse, John and Clare are delighted to see that there is still a Tawny Owl frequenting Liddells. They also hope that the weasel escapes the owl’s clutches. Clare is always delighted to see footage of hares so has included a clip of the last of the March hares. Of course she hopes there will be April hares too. John has included the footage of the roe doe scenting the air and he says you can see how she licks her lips to intensify her sensing.

30th March

Clare and John decided to have an afternoon walk round Liddells to see what might be in flower. They found Celandine, Daisy and Coltsfoot. As they walked close to the Oak tree at the west end of the Crag, a Barn owl flew out of the Barn Owl box. It is one of the most exciting moments they have had on Liddells. While John watched to see where it flew, Clare took the opportunity to check a small nest box close by. John helpfully pointed out that it was unlikely that the Barn owl could have got through the hole. John and Clare decided to return in the early evening to see if the owl would be out hunting. They arrived at about 7.30 to see the owl flying and then perching on fence posts on the southern edge of the Pit Wood. Two roe does emerged from the Scrub, a hare ran off from near the bug hotel and two hares were sitting on the path near the roadside pond. It was a good visit.

Larch

Coltsfoot

31st March

It was too cold for Barn owl watching this evening, however John saw a Heron fly off the Big Pond. There may be less frogspawn than before.

February - Mud-month

(According to Susie Dent, in Old English this month was known as 'Solomona∂' or 'Mud-month'. It seemed too good a phrase not to use.) The weather made working on Liddells difficult this month, however after a frustrating time with the trail camera not working properly, February has seen it back functioning as it should, so there follows plenty of footage to show all the activity that goes on when John and Clare turn their backs. The footage also reveals the gradual accumulation of snow and tracks.

1st February

The trail camera has picked up a female blackbird in the Pit Wood. They are usually not as much in evidence as the males. John and Clare have learned from Keith that any larger male blackbirds with black beaks might be from Scandinavia, while smaller ones with black beaks will be young birds. Apparently for native blackbirds, the more orange the beak, the more desirable the male is to the female. The male pheasant in pursuit of the female is puffing himself up to appear more desirable. The female remains unimpressed. A male then seems to be offering himself up for a festive image.

4th February

John and Clare saw three deer on the Crag today. Clare checked her bees and again saw activity in two of the hives while the third is keeping its status well guarded.

6th February

Clare saw a hare on the north edge of the Pit Wood, two deer jumping out from near the bees and running up into the Scrub, and a Tree Creeper in a Hawthorn near the hide. Recent snow and rain has meant the old spring site is still in full spate and joining the run-off water from the current spring.

7th February

The trail camera has captured another first for Liddells - two foxes. Foxes mate in winter so this may be a pair.

11-14th February

The snow has its attractions. Tim walked over Liddells with his camera, John took his camera up too and Clare topped up the feeders. Keith visited to look at tracks. During his visit Keith heard a Woodpecker drumming and a Marsh Tit singing. Admittedly not a huge range of notes but lovely to hear. The footage of the bounding doe above demonstrates what different tracks this action makes - sets of four prints, each set about 6 to 8 feet apart.

When icicles hang by the hut… Tim pointed out that the icicles are directly in line with the furrows in the roofing sheets

Not a carefully dug path but the result of snow drifting

Large pond from the south

The Wetland and Crag looking east

Scots Pine with snow decoration

Brown hare print

Brown hare tracks

Fox print with size indicator

Fox tracks - Keith says they are much more direct than those of a dog, which would wander all over the place

Roe deer print

Roe deer tracks

John’s image of deer tracks across the Top Grazing

Blackbird

Pheasant

Wood pigeon

Resting Wood pigeon (‘probably’ Keith added)

Rabbit prints and size guide - a shorter span that that of a hare

Yak

Meadow and path west

Wetland showing desire paths - unofficial shortcuts which become worn into the land (the term was coined in relation to planned city parks to illustrate how architects of these spaces sometimes fail to anticipate the needs and desires of the users. Here the desire paths show animals’ habitual routes

15th-25th February

Still no work possible on Liddells, so the trail camera is coming in to its own recording other activities. There is much pairing going on and evidence of territory marking. The badger appears most nights nearly always going in the same direction and has more than once appeared twice on the same night going in the same direction, which begs the questions - is it one badger or two and, if it is one badger, why does it come back round again?! The fox, too, seems to prefer the same directional route and pees/marks the same tree most times.

John notes that the footage of the buck shows that it will have a very fine set of antlers this year. It is almost certainly the same buck caught on camera last year, when it had noticeably irregular antlers.

Clare’s annual hopes that she might see hares boxing on Liddells are raised.

Clare heard her first singing Thrush this year on 22nd. It was a sunny day and she noticed a couple of bees flying in and out of Hive 1, the hive where the bees hadn’t touched the fondant and so where Clare was a bit concerned about their survival.

26th February

Clare and John risked the rootling badger’s appetite for bulbs and transplanted Snowdrops in the north side of the Pit Wood. John had s few camera moments.

The waxing February Snow moon

The last of the snow in a shaded north-facing hollow in the Quarry

Bluebells emerging

Long-tailed tit

Great tit affronted by Pheasant table manners

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Yes, it’s twin prop

27th February

John took delivery of a flail mower, which will cut the time spent on strimming.

Hal, Beth and Juno visited Liddells. Juno sowed wildflower seeds she had been given for her birthday. She chose to sow them round the hide. She then made potions from things she had collected - moss, lichen, bark, feathers, leaves, pine seeds, etc. - all stirred up in pond water with magic powder (ground turmeric and beetroot). While Clare was collecting pond water she heard a male frog’s mating call and saw a sudden flurry of activity in the water. She’ll be looking out for frogspawn soon. Juno ended her visit with a ride on ‘Grandpa’s toy’!

There were lots of bees flying in and out of all three hives. They will most probably be foraging on Snowdrops, Gorse, Hazel and Alder catkins on Liddells and any flowering bulbs in nearby gardens.

As Clare walked home, she heard her first Curlew song of the year, about a mile away from Liddells. Jane W who lives near Liddells, had heard a Curlew the day before in the fields close to Liddells.

Mower awaiting grass to cut and demonstrating its dominance over the strimmer

October - trashing the brashing (aka hauling and chipping)

1st October

The lone doe has appeared on the trail camera again. John’s long term stalking buddy Mike thinks she might be last year’s kid. That would explain her following her mother and hanging around near the new family. And maybe her rather forlorn expression.

2nd October

While Clare tackled what she has now decided is a five year plan working on the south boundary wall, John worked on trailer refurbishment.

Clare is less than convinced that John has thought through the implications of his repairs.

Better, though still room for improvement

He worked it out in the end

4th October

The sheep have eaten off the Top Grazing and been moved to a neighbour’s field. They will return to eat off the Meadow in a few days.

8th October

Clare knew that her birthday would be incomplete without a trip to Liddells. Just before leaving after a leisurely stroll round, she and John saw a hare sitting out in the afternoon sunshine by the beehives. Clare was certain it was a birthday gift from the land.

9th October

Clare planted wildflower plugs grown from Juno’s third birthday seed packet round the Shepherd’s hut. While lunching in the hide, Clare expressed concern that the Marsh Tits hadn’t been seen for several weeks. Minutes later two appeared on the feeders, as did a Redpoll. It’s as if they had heard.

10th October

The sheep returned to graze on the Meadow. Clare sowed Yellow Rattle seeds round the Shepherd’s hut.

11th October

Clare planted more plugs donated by friends. John did some maintenance on the larches in the West Verge. Long-tailed tits visited the feeders for the first time since early summer. Three Redwings flew into the Hawthorn in front of the hide. Although climate change means that seasons are less well defined, there is still a noticeable shift in seasonal patterns. For the birds, winter is on the way. They are also beginning to take more food from the feeders.

The trail camera revealed another first for Liddells - two badgers appeared going through the Scrub.

While Clare was sowing Yellow Rattle seeds in the outside verge where she has been removing nettle and bramble, a woman stopped to say that she had seen a red squirrel in the drive of the neighbouring house just a few days earlier. This is only a few hundred yards from Liddells.

12th October

John had a lightbulb moment this morning. He had booked a chipper for two days in order to tackle the brash piles. For once, the weather forecast was correct and the rain Biblical. Shortly before it was time to collect the chipper, John suggested that he could cancel the hire. In a state of some wonderment, Clare agreed that this was indeed a choice they could make. Hire cancelled. John and Clare walked around in a bit of a daze all day. And dry. This could be life-changing.

The sheep have obviously decided there is insufficient food left on the Meadow so some have gone looking for pastures new.

It is always a delight to see evidence of hares. Clare and John hope this one is leaping for an equivalent joy.

13th October

Farmer John came to take the sheep off.

Hal, John and Clare worked on moving more logs and bringing brash up from the Pit Wood ready for chipping when the weather is suitable. Hal was rewarded for his efforts by seeing a hare on the Top Grazing.

15th October

John and Clare called on Mel’s help for hauling the brash. Clare reckoned that by the time it is spread on paths as chip or on the garden as mulch, it will all have been moved six times and some seven. There is an adage that firewood warms us three times - in cutting, in splitting and stacking and in burning. The brash could be responsible for quite a rise in temperature.

Clare sowed the remaining Yellow Rattle seeds in the west end of the Top Grazing in the hope that the prevailing wind will contribute to the spread of the plant.

The trail camera captured images that are sure to delight.

A small portion of the brash after its journey over the fence

16th October

The bales were taken off the Top Grazing. John P sent a photograph of what happened next.

Delicious!

20th October

Footage from the trail camera is helping to offset the hard work involved in moving the brash.

24th October

Clare and John are definitely hearing more blackbirds on Liddells now. The trail camera has captured some in the Scrub together with a small flock of foraging Redwings. Towards the end of the footage you can see the identifying stripe over the eye of the Redwing in the bottom left corner of the scene. The Tawny Owl is also looking for food in the Scrub.

26th October

Well, the weather forecast was for rain, however, undeterred, John, Clare and Mel tackled the brash. Clare, seeing the mountainous piles that lay waiting, was concerned that John had only booked the chipper for one day. John and Clare began at 9am and finished one group of mounds by the time Mel arrived at 10.30. John, obviously thinking the work was not hard enough, went and fetched three more trailer loads of brash from the North-east Strip. Two hours later a lunch break was allowed. Readers can draw their own conclusions as to who authorised this. The weather changed shortly after lunch and rain began of the kind that had brought about the cancellation of the chipper earlier in the month. John, Clare and Mel pretended not to notice and by 2pm no brash remained - anywhere on Liddells. Clare was astonished and very relieved, however the land had not joined in the weather denial; Clare got her car stuck in the mud and had to call on John and Mel’s pushing services to leave the site. A slight dampener on the chipping triumph.

John starting off

Tier 1- the lowest level of chip; no restrictions on movement

Tier 2 - to be applied to central and western sections of the Top Strip path; may be transported in bag or barrow; may be taken home to be used as mulch …

Tier 3 - the highest level of chip; this can only be used in the Top Strip carried in bags or on barrows and can only mix with chip from other chip bubbles

27th-31st October

Recovery from chipping exertions.

December - boardom

1st December

Encouraged by identifying the type of spider’s web last month, Clare photographed a web with a different structure but found it hard to decide what kind of web it is. It most resembles the kind of web created by a spider after a dose of caffeine.

Work on the bird-watching screen (which is becoming more substantial than Clare had originally envisaged and is now more like a hide), involved adding floorboards.

See the image on the right towards the bottom of this page

5th December

More framing.

6th - 7th December

Although the deer have not been captured by the trail camera for a while, badger, fox and hare are all evident in the Pit Wood. The hare appeared on the camera in exactly the same spot, at exactly the same time on consecutive days - so hare today and hare tomorrow.

9th December

As Clare is doing her share of the building, she insisted this contribution be noted for the record.

Framed!

10th - 11th December

Work progresses. The hammer is a shadow of itself. The fox is still around and the camera catches the hare in the dusk.

12th - 13th December

The lower boarding at the front is complete and the roofing sheets are in place although awaiting a few more fixings.

18th December

Adding boards for the opening at the back of the shelter means that the frame is complete. The secondhand timber from the Mart Sale has been nearly enough for the whole structure, however John and Clare will need to buy a bit more to finish. There are some thicker boards left that will be used to make the benches for the inside. Sadly this grand design does not run to a coffee machine.

23rd December

While Clare was involved with things seasonal at home, John decided he was able to work on the screen without Clare’s oversight.

John says it’s quirky. Clare will be micromanaging in future

26th December

Many people go for a walk on Boxing Day. Not Clare and John.

Ready for work

27th December

While Clare looked after Juno, John headed for the gramadoelas (Remote rural region, the backwoods, the sticks; OED Word of the Day 3.12.19). He did some brashing, tree tube maintenance and cleaned out bird boxes in the Top Strip. Clare was pleased he was morigerous (Obedient, compliant, submissive; OED Word of the Day 30.12.19) and resisted further attempts to introduce quirkiness to the screen, since she tends towards being perjink (Exact, precise, extremely accurate; OED Word of the Day 28.12.19).

The trail camera captured a deer on its way through the Pit Wood so at least one is still around. You can see how well it is camouflaged in its winter coat.

28th December

The outer structure is nearly complete. Clare and John turned their attention to the furnishings. They are hoping that they will be able to complete the - well it really is more than a screen, so has been upgraded to a hide - by the end of the year.

John bringing supplies

Trying out bench heights

29th December

Walking down to road to the bottom gate, Clare felt she was being watched. Beech is associated with femininity and thought to be the the queen of British trees. Clare hoped this tree was casting a kindly eye on her. Back at work John wrestled with finishing details on the boarding while Clare dug holes for a pole and a dead tree trunk that will support feeders. Together they fixed a bench along the front and imported two chairs for the side openings. Clare was suitably zealous with her new broom.

Pole and tree trunk in place

A new broom really does sweep clean

Almost ready

30th December

John fixed poles into the posts, added shelving and tried out how the feeders will hang.

31st December

A sunny, frosty day to end the year on Liddells. Clare filled the feeders then grappled with the guardian for the ground feeder which eventually surrendered to her efforts. She then fetched the last two telegraph poles from the sheds and part rolled and part dragged them to the hide site. They will support the remaining feeders. Thanks are due to Eilidh for the poles which she originally donated for Paul’s training. We are pleased to have been able to use so much secondhand and repurposed timber on the hide. Clare dug holes for the last two posts and left with the hope that the birds will not take too long to find the food.

A Happy New Year to all our readers. We are always delighted to hear that people read and follow this blog. Thank you for your support.

Awaiting birds

Soft rush on the Wetland

November - dig this

1st November

Along with familiar footage of deer, badger, fox and grey squirrels, John and Clare were delighted to see some birds captured by the trail camera. Although John and Clare have seen Redwings most winters, this is the first time the birds have been caught on camera.

Jays are often heard and sometimes seen on Liddells, however this is the first movie footage to show one.

2nd November

An addition to life on Liddells has arrived. It is not as tall as expected and is not clad in bright colours. We do believe it is capable of work of great strength. Its feet are conspicuously free of curly hair.

Pass the parcel 1 - the crate

Pass the parcel 2 - the inner box

Pass the parcel 3 - the bindings

It really is very small

The Hobbit revealed…

…and it comes with its own tiny dustpan and brush, seen next to normal size ones

Moving the stove out of the car boot, up the shepherds hut steps and into the hut took all of John and Clare’s combined strength.. It is made of cast iron. They worked their way through all the layers of packaging (see above) and John initially thought the instruction manual was missing, however found it cunningly concealed in the ash can. On Page 4 Clare found vital information. If only they’d known!

9-11th November

There are noticeably more blackbirds visible and audible on Liddells now. The overwintering birds from Scandinavia must have arrived.

John has almost finished laying the lino floor in the shepherds hut. As it is best cut when not too cold, he and Clare had to empty their kitchen and spread it out on that floor in order to have enough space to unroll and cut it almost to size.

John loves the Collective and Farmstock sales at the local Mart and has picked up many bargains there for Liddells - roofing sheets for sheds, fence posts, flat bed trailer, and more besides - having created a design for the bird-watching screen and hence a shopping list, he was prospecting even more purposefully than usual at the recent sale and discovered that not only was there plenty of the kind of timber that was needed, but also roofing sheets. He was successful at bidding and he and Clare then made three journeys with their little trailer to collect it all.

Load number 1 waiting to be stacked behind the bottom gate

12th November

John’s pool playing has unexpected dividends - two fellow players volunteered to help carry all the sale timber and roofing sheets to where they will be needed. This was no small undertaking - hauling wet and heavy boards and awkwardly-shaped sheets along several hundred yards of sodden and slippery ground and then over a stile. Clare thinks John must be such an asset to the pool team that they will do anything necessary to keep him playing.

Employing strong arm tactics

The trail camera has captured the following footage. John thinks this is the roe buck that has been around for a while and that it has recently shed its antlers and may be scratching where they have been.

13th November

John made the final cuts to the lino in the shepherds hut and worked on the support for the stove.

A fox came closer to the trail camera than ever before. It looks as though it has either a thick winter coat or is pretty well fed.

14th November

John and Clare were particularly pleased to discover that along with the familiar footage of deer, badger, fox and squirrels, the camera had captured a Sparrowhawk perched in the Scrub. Sparrowhawks will eat anything they can manage, including squirrels, so this squirrel was lucky. It is just possible to see the barring on the Sparrowhawk’s tail.

18th November

The sheep have eaten all they can from the Top Grazing so have been moved to the Meadow for a few days.

Juno is going through a phase of interrupted sleep. John is teaching her to count sheep.

There has only ever been one badger captured at any time by the camera. This may be a lone animal for whom Liddells is within its patch. Clare read that badger territories are roughly hexagonally-shaped areas, each border touching that of a neighbour's range, such that they form a honeycomb mosaic. Each sett is roughly in the middle of the territory and badgers forage closest to the sett first, moving further away as they exhaust the food reserves. The hole that John and Clare found near the Meadow has not been further excavated so may have been made by a badger unearthing a bumblebee nest.

22nd November

Having discovered that there is no spring at the base of the Crag, which John and Clare had thought a possibility, and that the wet area there is due to drainage from the land above, plans for an even larger pond at the base of the Crag had to be scrapped since there would be insufficient water flow to maintain such a pond. However John and Clare took advice and realised they could extend and improve the big pond instead. An 8 ton digger with operator arrived today and Carl set about the work. By the end of the day, he had enlarged and landscaped the borders of the big pond, enlarged both roadside and crag ponds, created a new pond, opened some of the grips and improved the roadway east of the roadside pond. While supervising all this activity, John saw a Woodcock fly out of the Pit Wood so at least one has arrived for the winter. Clare marked out the site for the bird-watching screen and was pleased to note that the willows woven into a screen were showing plenty of signs of life.

Arriving for work

Working

More working

The new pond seen from the Crag

Signs of life

23rd November

There had been substantial rain overnight so John and Clare went to check on the ponds and were delighted to see that they had already filled to their newer capacity.

Here’s the big pond 364 days ago. Note the rain

And here it is now

And from the south

The trail camera has captured footage of the roe buck again and here you can clearly see the remains of the pedicles where the antlers were attached.

24th November

Work began on the bird-watching screen. Clare dug holes for the first two posts and, with John’s help, put them in.

One post

The not-8-ton digger

Two posts

25 and 29th November

Work on the screen again - the second two posts in place, the subframe finished, the first floorboards fixed.

Liddells is saturated at present and not very appealing, however the rushes on the Wetland were covered in spiders’ webs and looked beautiful. Clare wondered if it might be possible to identify the kind of spider that would create this kind of web. The Natural History Museum came up trumps and Clare was able to recognise the webs she saw as sheet webs built by the spider family that includes the money spider. Coincidentally The Guardian’s Country Diary on Friday 29th was written by Susie White, who lives near Allendale, and she too commented on ‘the delicate hammocks of money spiders’.

Three posts and John thinking

Three posts and John thinking

Four posts and level checking

Sheeting

Flooring

30th November

Today was chosen by the Woodland Trust for their Big Climate Fight Back tree planting campaign. It just so happens that Clare’s friend Barbara had generously offered to give Clare trees to mark her recent birthday and they would only be ready at the end of this month. A plan was hatched: Barbara would come up from West Sussex in time to plant the trees on the 30th. The tree nursery’s delivery date was set back because the ground was so wet that they couldn’t lift the trees, then the haulage company’s scanner broke and they could give no assurance that the trees were loaded for delivery, however the tree gods and goddesses were obviously on The Woodland Trust’s side and the trees arrived on the 29th and were duly planted today. Clare had chosen a Hornbeam, a new species for Liddells. Barbara had generously bought two and a Rowan, so Barbara, Clare and John had a tree each to plant. Liddells was looking particularly beautiful in the heavy frost.

Dig a hole and insert tree…

Dig a hole and insert tree…

…with help if need be…

…hammer in stakes…

…well done John…

…wrap netting around the stakes

A localised climate fight back and three fewer trees for Corbyn to plant

Clare has long recognised Barbara’s artistic and creative abilities and was delighted Barbara left her mark on the shepherd’s hut

September - on the turn

2nd-6th September

Having reached the heights of the spoil heap for the Open Day, John and Clare set about making a way down. They spent some time working out whether it was better to work from the top or the bottom. In the end they did both. Happily the steps joined up.

Let’s start from the top

Or maybe the bottom

Ok, the bottom

And the top

3rd September

Clare was delighted to discover that the bees in the nucleus hive, long after the textbooks would suggest was likely, had a new queen that had started laying. This means that there will be four colonies going into the winter.

Leaving Liddells that same day, Clare and John were surprised to see a couple investigating the south boundary wall. They were delighted to discover that Ann and Andrew were on a mission to find all the ancient cross bases in the county. To their knowledge no-one had ever been interested before; Ann and Andrew were delighted that their efforts were so appreciated.

7th September

The first of the grandly called Consultation Lunches in the Shepherd’s hut. John and Clare had asked a number of people with relevant experience among their friends, to come and share ideas about how Liddells might be developed in the future, both enhancing what is already there, and offering new opportunities for engaging with the project. Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the day was the discovery of an Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar as Tim, Jane and Linda were leaving, on pretty much the exact spot where Linda had been telling Clare a couple of hours earlier about seeing one of these creatures near her home. Before the Consultants arrived John and Clare saw a charm of about fifty Goldfinches chasing off a Kestrel over the sheds.

8th September

The steps were finished. The OED must have known. The route over the spoil heap is no longer a mauvais pas (an area that is difficult or dangerous to negotiate; OED Word of the Day 8th September).

Stairway to Heaven…

…or descent into Hell? It all depends on your point of view

Clare is particularly pleased to have finished this task

10th September

The doe and her kid, which John is now convinced is also a doe, are regular users of the path through the Scrub, as is a fox who demonstrates his masculinity for the camera.

13th September

Tim forwarded the results of this year’s Butterfly Conservation Big Butterfly Count which shows a huge influx of Painted Ladies on the north-east coast. Tim’s counts over the summer reflect this surge in numbers too.

14th September

A badger joins the Scrub path users group; a roe buck marks his territory even though the rut is over; the roe kid has grown and lost her markings.

17th September

Clare and John sowed wildflower seeds in the shepherd’s hut enclosure hoping they will vernalise successfully and emerge in the Spring.

19th September

The fox can be seen boldly going about his business in daylight.

21st September

Clare spent some time preparing her bees for the winter, treating them for varroa mite (most honey bee colonies suffer from these now and if present in large numbers, the mites weaken the bees leaving them prone to infection and disease, particularly Deformed Wing Virus), and checking on the colonies’ stores. The newest and smallest colony is being threatened by robber bees (not everything is sweetness and honey in bee world) so Clare smeared the brood box with a eucalyptus rub, placed a sheet of glass over the entrance and added several small leafy branches. The home bees will be able to make their way through this obstacle course, the robbers may retire defeated and if they don’t, the delay caused to their activities will give the guard bees more time to attack.

23rd September

Juno was employed as a bug hotel builder and was satisfied with her work. Payment was made in blackberries.

26th September

Clare walked round with Sue D who is one of those people who are attuned to nature and therefore see and hear more than most. Together they saw a hare in the Top Strip, a roe doe in an adjoining field, a Goldcrest in the Orchard, a juvenile Goldfinch (wing markings not fully developed and a grey head) eating Knapweed seeds in the Meadow and a juvenile male Great Spotted Woodpecker (large red cap rather than red patch on the back of the head) on Sitka cones in the North-east Strip.

27-29th September

John has turned his attention to the inside of the shepherd’s hut, working out how best to fit a wood-burning stove and how to proceed with the chosen flooring. While he wrestled with measurements and paper patterns, Clare got down to the nuts and bolts of the matter and requested that a bolt and handle be fitted to the door so that it could be closed from the inside. As John often says, it’s all in the detail.

Frame in place for the insulation boards that will be behind the stove

Interior fixing to prevent hut users bolting

Getting a handle on things with a teleramic

Look closely at the handle - any guesses as to its origin? It’s repurposed from an object mentioned in an earlier blog post. While finding out whether this object had a particular name, Clare was delighted to discover that there is a Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society. She probably won’t join.

The trail camera, now moved to the Pit Wood, has captured the kid again and the images show very clearly how it has grown, but how it is losing its summer coat revealing the darker chocolatey brown winter coat below.