Bees

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.

July - 'wetter summers might prevent hay being cut' - fortunately not this year

To view the video footage in this Blog post go to www.liddells.co.uk and click on Blog.

1st July

John and Clare are keen to see how the three does and the six kids they have between them share the space on Liddells. Here the doe and singleton make their way through the Scrub.

2nd July

Clare reckoned she had removed all the Hogweed from the Meadow. Whether she has or not will be seen in due course. She completed a second butterfly transect; Meadow Browns and Ringlets were in evidence but not in great numbers. Following Tim’s route up to the Meadow from the north, Clare noticed a patch of Monkey Flower Erythranthe guttata which she had never seen on Liddells before. The plant is typically found growing in water margins and wetlands so it is not in its usual habitat, however it is very welcome, as is the Spot-winged Drone Fly foraging on Marsh Valerian.

The doe with twins is captured on the north edge Pit Wood and the singleton shows its growing independence in the centre of the Pit Wood.

3rd July

It is always a treat to see the deer and their kids in video footage, however it is also good to see evidence of other wild animals on Liddells. A fox and a badger put in an appearance in the Scrub.

5th July

Meadow Browns are around most dry days now.

A hare provides evidence that it is not just roe deer that are a threat to tree growth, however it is good to see the hares in the trail camera footage as at this time of year they are hidden in the long grass for much of the time.

7th July

Clare set about collecting Yellow Rattle seeds from this year’s growth. she bagged over 100gms which is quite a lot of seed. John mowed the path at the west end of the Top Strip for the first time since abandoning weeding as the form of maintenance - the mowing worked well so Clare can strike ‘maintain Top Strip path’ off her to-do list for evermore.

In this year’s dearth of butterflies Clare was pleased to see a Large Skipper on the Greater Knapweed.

8th July

The proximity of the rut is evidenced by the older buck chasing a doe through the Pit Wood and something has disturbed the doe and twins in the same location.

9th July

The twins forage independently in the Scrub and a bit over an hour later are with the doe in the rain in the Pit Wood.

10th July

In the Pit Wood the doe and her single kid provide a charming example of learning by copying.

Later the same day the Scrub camera, albeit with some obstruction on the lens, captures the doe with her triplets.

11th July

The triplets are the last of the kids to demonstrate their independence, caught on camera in the Scrub.

Shortly later the twins bound through the same area.

Ruth completed another ringing session. Her previous session had been very quiet so she was very pleased this time to end up with her highest number of birds yet - 50. She ringed several juvenile Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs, a juvenile Linnet and a pair of Yellowhammers. A good day!

Juvenile Linnet - Ruth said it ‘looked very fresh (wings and tail still growing)’

A Robin ‘starting to look like a Robin’!

Juvenile Yellowhammer 1…

and 2

16th July

Although the new gate on the Meadow has been at cost to a patch of Field Scabious Knautia arvensis, Clare is delighted that a different patch is thriving. Apparently species of scabious were used to treat scabies and many other afflictions of the skin including sores caused by the bubonic plague. The word scabies comes from the Latin scabere 'to scratch'. The plant is also called gipsy rose.The genus Knautia is named after a 17th-century German botanist, Christian Knaut.

Juveniles are often present on the feeders and John was able to photograph a young Goldfinch.

18th July

John decided to reposition one of the cameras on the Hayfield as there was evidence of the deer using the long grass for couching. No deer appeared however there is an amusing clip of a Pheasant staring into the lens. Clare took a photo of the camera so readers can work out where the bird perched. She also remembered that there is a wildflower called Pheasant’s Eye. If readers click on the link, you can decide whether the flower is well named.

19th July

As in previous years the Willow Tits have disappeared through the breeding season, which leaves John and Clare anxious. They were both relieved to see one of the adults at the feeders today. John will take his camera up in the hope of further sightings.

21st July

As the day warmed up Clare noticed quite a few bumblebees around. Here is a Garden Bumblebee making the most of the forage on a Spear Thistle, a honey bee on Creeping Thistle, a pair of Red Soldier Beetles illustrating their nickname (Hogweed Bonking Beetles) and some Ragwort from the Wetland. Many people have heard that Ragwort is poisonous and a threat to horses and cattle and then assiduously pull it up from verges and the like. Horses and cattle will not eat Ragwort in a field; the plant is only poisonous if it is cut into a hay crop and fed to beasts. The plant is a valuable food source for a wide range of insects, in particular the cinnabar moth. John and Clare pull out any they find on the Hayfiled and Meadow, however they leave it in other places.

Clare enjoys seeing honey bees foraging on Liddells and always assumes they are from the Liddells apiary

Bonkers!

The much maligned Ragwort.

23rd - 24th July

An update on the deer. The triplets and the twins have been captured by the Scrub camera. After last month’s first ever (for John) footage of a deer barking, here is another. Expect the third any day…

Tom and Barry had planned to start cutting and making the hay earlier this week then the weather defied the forecast, however today it and the prospect over the next few days was better so Tom cut the Hayfield. Clare is unsure whether it is more stressful not knowing whether the grass can be cut at all or, when it is cut, whether the rain will hold off until the hay is made.

Recently the fat ball feeders in front of the hide have been opened and the fat balls eaten in spite of the feeders allegedly being squirrel proof. John and Clare have tried several methods of securing the lids none of which has proved to be effective for longer than a day or two. Clare set up a camera to see what happened.

25th July

John and Clare are spending a lot of time preparing Liddells for an Open Weekend next month, so while one man (Tom) went to mow, one man (John) took to his strimmer and one woman (Clare) set to work with her sickle and her scythe. John and Clare are making sure the paths are clear ready for visitors. While Clare was walking up through the Scrub she noticed the single Nettle-leaved Bellflower (there has never been more than one) is in flower.

25th - 28th July

It took the squirrel a couple of days to get the lid off. In the process it investigated the nyjer seed feeder as well. The squirrel made four visits/attempts on the first day, four on the second and cracked it on its second visit on the third day. Thereafter it made four further visits that day and two on the next before Clare retrieved the disc. The feeder is now secured with a cable tie - probably easily chewable. The videos below show something of the process and how almost the instant the squirrel is successful and leaves with his trophy, the birds come to the nyjer seed feeder (one of the Willow Tits appears; they seem to vanish during the breeding season so Clare & John are especially pleased to have evidence they are still around). A Wood Pigeon looks bemused by how to get a fat ball even though the top of the feeder is off but then Pigeons seem bemused at the best of times. Clare was told that a way of recognising their call was to hear ‘I don’t know, I don’t’. A juvenile Woodpecker shows its head as it starts to climb the pole.

Later that night in the Scrub the camera catches the height of the rut. The old buck drives the oldest and largest of the does round in a circle through hawthorns. There were three videos. In the first the pair make three circuits; there is a five second gap while the camera regroups and then captures another two circuits and the sounds of a third before the clip finishes. In the third video, five seconds later and not included here, you can hear the doe squeaking then all goes silent. Readers can use their imaginations for what happened next. John says he has read a buck will mate with the youngest does first, so he deduces that this buck will already have mated with the other two does who have Liddells as their home patch. If there is no buck on the home patch, the doe will go and find one and draw it in. Clare commented that there must be different driving circles on Liddells as the Scrub camera has been working and has not recorded any other driving. The rut is propelled by the does, who are monoestrus, coming into oestrus from mid-July. There is thinking that this happens as daylight hours begin to shorten. Apparently the word ‘rut’ is ‘late Middle English: from Old French, from Latin rugitus, from rugire ‘to roar.’’ Red deer stags do indeed roar, however as readers of this Blog know, roe deer bark.

29th July

With no fat balls left, the squirrel has to picnic on pine cones.

Clearing inside a caged Scots Pine, Clare saw a female Nursery Web Spider carrying her egg sac in her fangs.

While John and Clare feed a pile of brash through a chipper, Tom takes a spinning class.

Tom will probably row up the hay tomorrow. It smells gorgeous

The Point of View steps looking chipper after a top up

After John and Clare had left, a juvenile Greater Spotted Woodpecker visited the feeders.

30th July

As expected the squirrel had chewed through the cable tie so there are now carabiner clips on the fat ball feeders. Ha!

Ruth had a personal best with 62 birds in her nets this morning. She said that the warblers were arriving in the nets in small flocks. She listed the juveniles - 9 Chiffchaffs, 9 Siskins, 6 Willow Warblers, 6 Robins, 5 Blackcaps, 4 Bullfinch, 3 Goldfinch, 3 Blackbirds, 2 Wrens, 2 Blue Tits, 1 Goldcrest, 1 Dunnock and 1 Great Tit. It sounds like an alternative version of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Yesterday Clare had found a Broad-leaved Helleborine where she had not found one before however she had forgotten to take a photograph. Today she went looking for more and found only about a half dozen plants in total, far fewer than when she and Mel first discovered the plants on Liddells two years ago. (Mel will probably complete a wildflower survey any day so watch next month’s Blog post for a numbers update.) On the way Clare noticed a Red Admiral and a Comma both with folded wings and blending into the bark, high on an Oak. Her attempts to take a photo of them together came to a full stop when the Comma flew off. It was the only Comma Clare has seen this year.

She also looked for the Betony in the Pit Wood and found a colony of about twenty plants still thriving; the Bittersweet nearby them was also increasing in its spread.

Betony Stachyis officinalis commonly known as Common Hedgenettle, Purple Betony, Wood Betony, Bishopwort, or Bishop’s wort. Historically, it was planted in churchyards to prevent activity by ghosts.

In dyeing the plant makes chartreuse on wool with alum mordant.

Betony was also an ingredient of “Pistoja powder,” an old herbal medicine remedy for arthritis, gout, and tension headaches. It was also claimed to be effective against snake and dog bites, and was believed to be a cure for drunkenness.

Bittersweet Solanum dulcamara also known as Woody Nightshade. The berries are toxic; the leaves smell of burnt rubber when crushed.

At the Big Pond Clare watched Common Blue and Emerald Damselflies, a male Common Darter and the impressive blue helicopter that is the male Common Hawker. Clare apologises for the poor quality of the photos, at the time she was more concerned with not falling into the pond than with sharp focus; also she didn’t have her glasses; and dragon and damselflies won’t keep still for long! She had more success filming a Raft spider weaving its web above the surface of the pond. ‘The chocolate-brown raft spider inhabits bogs and ponds. It can be spotted sitting near the water, its legs touching the surface. When it feels the vibrations of potential prey, it rushes out to catch it, floating like a raft…Raft spiders will also swim underwater, often diving beneath the surface when threatened.’ According to the Wildlife Trust website, these spiders are ‘widespread but scarce.’ (wildlifetrusts.org)

On her way up to the Hayfield Clare saw what she first thought were ladybirds on one or two of the Willows in Sylvia’s Avenue, however on closer inspection they proved to be galls. Identification, even with the help of the British Plant Gall Society (who knew?) still proved difficult, however they are possibly Aceria iteina a mite that causes galls on Salix species.

The Scrub camera recorded the singleton kid with a dragonfly in the foreground - a reminder that dragonflies often use trees for shelter.

31st July

Tom rowed up the hay this morning. This afternoon, while Clare was working on path clearing, she heard the welcome sound of a tractor. The month has ended balefully. Ten bales this year, fewer than before however John and Clare are very relieved to have the work completed. Huge votes of gratitude to Tom and Barry for making time to help us.

Hip, hip, hoo hay!!

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.

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.

June - the call of the wild

First corrections and clarifications from last month. Chris, ever supportive, helped untangle the mysteries of the dragon/damselfly emergences. Chris says that the last photo of the May blog post shows ‘four damselfly exuviae and two damselflies.  The white threads coming out of the back of the two in the centre are the nymphs’ spiracles and are evidence that emergence has occurred.  Bottom left, hidden by a leaf…there are two more, one behind the other.  The upper damselfly is a female large red, recently emerged and beginning to colour up.  The lower one has only just emerged and has no colour or visible markings so we can’t say what it is, although it will be a large red or an azure.  It is still in the process of expanding its wings which will go clear like the one above’. Chris also commented that the penultimate photograph shows a Four-spotted chaser, not, as Clare had labelled it, a female Broad-bodied chaser. He pointed out the extra spots on the wings; he said that without a clear view of the abdomen, it isn’t possible to determine the sex.

NB remember that to see the videos (and there are some particular delights later in the Blog) go to the website www.liddells.co.uk and click on the Blog page.

1st June

Clare decided to embark on her 30 Days Wild - readers take note, this Wildlife Trust challenge has been featured in The Archers this year - by having a stroll round Liddells to see what she could see. She wondered about attempting some grass/rush/sedge identification but decided life was too short. She made for the Big Pond where she realised that almost every upright growth in the water had several damselfly exuviae attached.

She noticed a pair of Pied Wagtails flying away from the Hayfield, and what she guessed was a juvenile Rook hopping along the boundary wall while a parent bird appeared to caw encouragement from the top of an Ash tree.

A juvenile’s beak appears quite thin

She was keeping an eye open for any glimpse of a doe and kids and did hear a deer bark but with no sign of the animal. As she approached the north-east corner of the Pit Wood, she kept her eye out for Spotted flycatchers. It’s the part of the wood where she has seen them in previous years although she had spent a while looking there without success two days previously. She was delighted to see a pair of the birds and watched them for about half an hour as they fluttered between an Ash and a Hawthorn. Next she went to the hide to fill the feeders and was amazed to see a Spotted flycatcher on top of one of the Hawthorns in front of the hide. It flew off towards where she had just been watching them. Neither Clare nor John have ever seen this species near the hide before. While she was watching, a Tree Sparrow, usually very shy about coming on to the feeders if someone is in the hide, spent a lot of time taking mixed seed. Then a pair of Siskins perched nearby. These have not been seen for months here. A good bird-watching episode. All these sightings are a reminder that the breeding bird survey doesn’t account for all the birds that may be around. It was also a great start to Clare’s 30 Days Wild.

Clare then had another unexpected experience - she realised that about a dozen sheep and lambs from the neighbouring field had pushed against the bottom gate, freeing the bolt though the chain was still in place, and opening it sufficiently to force their way through the gap, and were busy grazing on the Meadow. Clare set about some impromptu shepherding. This involved unlocking the gate while not letting any more animals in. At the sound of the padlock some cows and calves came running down to the gate so they had to be sent on their way first. While this was happening some of the sheep had made their way up through the Scrub and were near the open gate into the Hayfield. Clare managed to head them off at the pass, get to the gate before them and close it but then had to make a wide arc round the sheep to encourage them back down. She also had to keep an eye on the neighbouring field to check nothing else was getting in. This involved a lot of running up and down hill seeking different routes from the sheep. Fortunately the splinter group made their way out of the gate. Clare then sought to move the Meadow sheep. She managed to encourage them out of the Meadow and she closed the hurdle - not an easy task as it hadn’t been moved for ages and the chicken wire at the bottom had become enmeshed in grass. As she moved them towards the gate they broke back into the Meadow by forcing themselves through the wire. Hurdle off again. Clare felt like a beginner at a sheepdog trials as they sheep kept circling the Meadow, approaching the entrance and then going off in a different direction. At last they left the Meadow but then chose to go back into the Scrub. Clare wanted to head them off before they reached the top so went up through the Scrub by a different path. The sheep, intent on getting to the top, were ahead of her. Clare went back down to the bottom, through the gate and up the road, in through the top gate and approached them from above. This seemed to work and the sheep headed down the main path. Clare took the other path and hoped to stop them turning left at the bottom rather than right and through the gate. This was a good plan except the sheep were slower than Clare had expected and were still quite a way up the path when Clare appeared at the bottom. Guess what - they went back up the path. Clare repeated the last section of the plan and this time the sheep came all the way down the path and turned right and out through the gate. Clare reckons this counts as a wild experience. She can also see that it does all sound quite amusing. One day she hopes to be able to laugh about it. Fortunately she was soothed on her walk home by seeing a pair of Linnets and a mile further on, a pair of Greenfinches.

June 2nd

Clare noticed that the cattle grazing with the sheep had been munching on the Sycamores overhanging Liddells’ road wall, probably because they are sweet with honeydew at the moment, and the cattle had knocked down quite a section of the wall. Clare made her way down to the NE Strip to prune the Sycamores there and reduce the risk of more damage. As she approached the Meadow she saw a ewe and two lambs happily grazing there. They must have split off at some point during yesterday’s shenanigans and returned to the Meadow after Clare had left. Fortunately Tim and Jane were walking past at just this moment so the business of removing the sheep only took a couple of minutes. Hardly wild at all.

The Flycatchers were still in the same area of the Pit Wood and using the same perches as yesterday. Clare returned a deer’s bark with one of her own, a skill learned from John. She saw a large newt in the Big Pond and a green Weevil on the road gate.

Clare thinks this is Polydrusus cervinus although the description does not include metal gates as a habitat.

A clip from the trail camera in the Pit Wood - although no wildlife is to be seen the footage is included here because the bird calling is a Marsh tit. They are often seen on the feeders but not so often heard.

Later that same evening the camera captures a wonderful close up of the older buck’s head. You can see the gutters (grooves) and pearls (the knobbly bits) on his antlers, and just what a fine head he has.

June 3rd

Clare did more Sycamore brashing while John repaired the wall. After that strenuous work John went to see if he could photograph the Flycatchers. He was very pleased with the result. Rightly so.

Clare had a leisurely walk around and several wild encounters - a Goldcrest, a Treecreeper, a Sparrowhawk and the Flycatchers. She sat in the hide for a while and noticed a Great tit make numerous trips to peck up some of the peanut butter-based paste that she makes and leaves on the tree trunk feeder. The bird took the paste to the nestlings in J2.

By the pond she saw a female Broad-bodied chaser ovipositing, a Small Copper butterfly and had an up close and personal encounter with a Large Red damselfly.

Keen film fans might recognise a film from 1970 referenced here (answer at the end of this post)

4th June

Mel arrived to complete a wildflower survey. He showed Clare the difference between a Bulbous buttercup and a Meadow buttercup. In the latter the sepals are turned downwards.

John created a Sycamore Gap on Liddells by removing the spindly trees in the NE Strip which were not only tempting the cattle but crowding out some Oaks.

Bulbous buttercup

Meadow buttercup

John thinks the footage below is of the younger doe and is left wondering if she is pregnant. Time may tell.

5th June

Clare often hears Blackcaps singing on Liddells however with all the foliage she rarely sees one. Today one perched in one of the Hawthorns in front of the hide. Catching up with some old episodes of Tweet of the Day later on, Clare was reminded that the bird is referred to as the ‘Northern Nightingale’.

Clare set about some preparatory work for the school visit next month by beginning to weed the steps up to the Point of View ready to add new chip.

Mel sent his updated record of the wildflowers on Liddells. It’s an impressive and encouraging record and John and Clare are hugely grateful to Mel for the time he has given and the thoroughness with which he has done this. You can see the record here. Mel was interested to find several specimens of White Bugle not far from the hide. He commented that these are quite rare. He also enjoyed the Orange Hawkweed on the Meadow and the Water Violet in the Big Pond.

White bugle

Mel prefers the name Grim the Collier:

‘Although Pilosella aurantiaca (more commonly known as Fox-and-cubs) is a native of northern Europe, it must’ve been introduced to Britain a very long time ago as it gets a mention in Gerard’s 1633 Herbal. Gerard called it Grimme the Collier, which seems to me a most intriguing name. I’ve read speculation that the name may have been coined because the plant’s hairs resemble coal dust on a miner’s beard (really?) but there was also a play that originated in the early 1600s called Grim the Collier of Croydon and that was apparently based on a real-life character from the mid 16th century. It would seem more likely that the plant’s name relates to the person or the play but, in that case, I can’t help wondering: was Grim tall with a head of bright orange hair? Was Grim an invader from northern Europe? Were these particular flowers mentioned in the play?’ (Earthstar.blog)

Water Violet

6th June

Hares and roe deer are predominant on the trail cameras however Clare and John are always pleased to see evidence of other life (except grey squirrels).

8th June

Clare was working on the steps when she saw a Red and Black Froghopper. Struck by their colour she thought about London buses and wondered if several would turn up together. Sure enough within a few minutes she had seen four, clearly the Routemasters of the insect world. Here are a couple:

John has been surprised to see the younger buck still around, particularly as this is the time when does give birth and have usually pushed the former year’s youngsters away by now. You can see that this one has, in roe deer head terms, a rather poor set of antlers.

However the older buck seems aware of the younger one’s presence as he sniffs at this branch and the next day is seen chasing him through the Scrub.

9th - 11th June

Clare noticed the first of the Common Spotted Orchids out in flower on the Meadow and a profusion of Ragged Robin at the base of the Crag. A female Broad-bodied Chaser perched long enough for Clare to get a photograph and she watched a family of Willow Warblers near the apiary. One juvenile stayed still for long enough for a short video.

13th June

Clare was delighted to be receiving a new colony of bees today - a small colony that was the result of swarm control by beekeepers in a nearby village. The delivery was due early in the morning as it was so hot and when Clare arrived at Liddells the dew revealed a mass of webs all over the grass.

‘Sheet webs are usually built by the Linyphiidae. This is the largest family of spiders in the UK, with 280 species. It includes the tiny money spiders said to bring good luck if you find one wandering over you.

The smallest species tend to build their sheet webs on depressions in the soil, others on low vegetation and some on tree bark.

The money spider hangs beneath its web, waiting for dinner to land above.’ (https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/spider-webs.html)

14th June

John and Clare have been keen to retrieve the trail camera discs as they have been expecting the roe does to have their kids at any time now, however here is the older doe still pregnant.

15th - 21st June

While metaphorically pacing the corridors of the maternity ward, John and Clare enjoyed welcoming Hal, Beth and Juno for an afternoon on Liddells, continued their preparations for group visits in July and for John’s inaugural talk on roe deer which he is giving at a local village hall. Clare also completed this year’s assault on the Creeping thistle on the Meadow - she was delighted to have found only 78 in total, well down from previous years.

Positioning the first post for what will become a tree house. Beth would like it noted that John is not carrying anything and that carrying it over, she had the heavy end

Juno and Hal indulge in a bit of tree climbing…

while John assumes the role of Health and Safety Officer

Juno joined in Insect Week by finding and examining the nymph of a Froghopper inside Cuckoo Spit. She couldn’t resist finding a use for Foxglove flowers.

John took his camera to the pond.

Male Broad-bodied chaser

Azure damselflies mating

John also spotted the creature below on a leaf on the pond. Clare thinks it belongs in a cartoon or animated film. The Royal Entomological Society has a wonderful insect identification service and the response to Clare’s enquiry about this one was that it is ‘one of the leaf beetles from the family Chrysomelidae with some 280 UK species. This one could be Plateumaris sericea or a related species. They have a variety of colour forms and are found near ponds where the larval food plants are’.

After leaving the bees alone to settle in for a few days, Clare moved them from the nucleus hive (5 frames) to a full size brood box. The bees had built wild comb on top of the frames - Clare thinks they must be upwardly mobile.

John says that bucks often seem to be invisible in the summer months however the older buck is maintaining his presence for the trail camera in the Scrub.

22nd June

The day before John’s talk ‘A Year in the Life of the Roe Deer’, Clare decided to change the discs in her camera. Imagine her delight when she saw the perfect postcript for the talk.

Clare reckons the one at the back is destined for a career in comedy. The doe has had triplets for the third year running.

The doe is picked up by the camera in the Pit Wood later the same day though only two kids appear.

23rd June

One kid appears on its own in the Scrub.

24th/25th June

With paths needing chip, John and Clare hired a chipper and invited a few friends to come and work extremely hard in return for some cake. Fortunately they have great friends. Five piles of brash were converted to the wood equivalent of mincemeat, about two dozen bagfuls were used on paths and the rest bagged up for future use. Clare was so focussed on the work she forgot to take photographs until the end so it looks as though Jane E did all the work. Clare and John would like to extend their thanks to all who took part - Barry, Jane B, Mel, Pat and Jane E. As ever they all pitched in with huge amounts of effort, great good humour and a much valued generosity of spirit. Thanks too to local farmer John R who donated lots of bags to reuse.

Jane B discovered a visitor on her jacket which Jim Hardie of the Royal Entomological Society identified as ‘an adult female meadow plant bug, Leptopterna dolabrata which is a plant/capsid bug, family Miridae of which there are some 230 UK species’. Good for it to appear in Insect Week. Also supporting Insect Week - Clare noticed these beetles bonking on Hogweed while she was walking home. Regular readers of the blog will know that in spite of their location and activity, these are not Hogweed Bonking beetles, although they may be trying to emulate them. These are Speckled Longhorn beetles Pacyytodes cerambyformis.

Adult female meadow plant bug

‘In the UK it is locally common in the south of England and the west midlands, throughout Wales and more local and scarce through most of Scotland. Adults are active from May until July … the typical habitat is deciduous woodland and wooded parkland but they fly well and will travel some distance to visit flowers and so may occur away from wooded areas, e.g. we found specimens on umbel flowers beside a busy A-road in Surrey far from any woodland, they are very active and on warm days may display a habit of hovering above flowers and moving rapidly, in the way a hoverfly might move. Mating occurs throughout the season and pairs may be seen on the leaves and flowers of various shrubs and herbaceous plants, typically umbels but also meadowsweet.’ (ukbeetles.co.uk)

Clare saw these beside a path between woodland and a road.

Crossing the Hayfield to some of the brash piles on Saturday, Clare noticed three very small couches all close together, suggesting the triplets had been left to lie up there. John says very young kids are scentless so their presence can’t be detected by the likes of a fox. On Sunday Clare arrived early and went onto the Meadow to remove some Hogweed flower heads and found a single couch. She thought this might not be one of the triplets who would most likely be together. Seeing a movement out of the corner of her eye, she realised she was looking at a single kid at the far end of the Meadow. It ran backwards and forwards along the fence line for a while watching Clare. No other kids appeared, nor a doe, so Clare left it confident that it would either find a way out or be found by the doe. John and Clare are left wondering if a second doe has given birth.

Clare also had a couple of delightful butterfly encounters on the Meadow.

25th June

Footage from the Scrub camera suggests that there is indeed a doe with only one kid.

28th June

Two video clips from the Scrub camera both seem to suggest that there is a doe with just one kid, maybe the kid Clare saw on the Meadow. The triplets have not appeared all together on the cameras since 22nd June. In the first clip it looks as though the doe stops to groom the kid just out of range of the camera.

29th June

John and Clare set about the last of the preparations for the Hexham Village Band’s visit on Saturday. Clare then went to Barry’s for some beekeeping and was delighted to spot a new queen fairly quickly - cataract surgery and new spectacles seem to work. Once a queen is identified she can be marked and this makes the whole process of swarm control considerably easier. Queens born this year are marked red although Barry’s queen was marked green as this was the pen to hand; clearly Clare and Barry are catering for red/green colour blindness.

If you have taken up the 30 Days Wild challenge, John and Clare hope you have enjoyed it.

The answer to the film question posed on 3rd June is Claire’s Knee, directed by Eric Rohmer. Clare remembers going to see this film as a student in the days of power cuts. The film had hardly started before the cinema was plunged into darkness whereupon Clare heard a disgruntled voice behind her complaining, “We haven’t even seen Claire, let alone her knee!”

March - the coming of Spring

1st March

From Nature Rambles Edward Step, 1930

‘How long the winter has been in going! Winters are always long; but some of them seem to us much longer than they ought to be, owing to a lengthy spell of north-east winds filling the sky with dark, heavy cloud when we are longing to see the swaying tassels of the hazel, the golden stars of lesser celandine and the haloes of the leafless coltsfoot…dwellers in the country…can take a fair ramble during the eight or nine hours of daylight, making up for the scarcity of flowers and insects by watching those birds that are with us only during the winter. There are also the shrews and mice of the hedge-bottom, and their hunters the stoat and weasel, to take note of…and the occasional bat that has woken up for a brief flight. There are almost endless treasures to be found in the pond, as soon as the thick ice has melted and made them easy to see and reach; and some nice things, such as many of the mosses, that can be found in full beauty during the cooler, moister months only.’

4th - 7th March

John and Clare put up the rest of the 12 new nesting boxes in the Scrub and the Pit Wood and saw four hares each day while so doing.

Clare asks which film title is being represented here? (answer at the end of this blogpost and credit to John for the joke)

The pond trail camera captured a hare eating peacefully.

Another and far healthier looking deposit of frogspawn has appeared in the roadside pond.

While Clare was in the hide she saw a Blue tit making several visits to perch in the entrance to nesting box J1 and a Great tit staying close to J2 for several minutes. She heard for the first time this year a Yellowhammer singing on the Wetland.

Clare spent some time taking tubes off Junipers at the top of the Crag and protecting the trees with chicken wire cages in order to give the plants the chance to bush out more and gain strength against the wind.

John and Dave took the top of a willow that had been blown over and broken in the Top Strip, however the tree had sprouted below the break so they left the rest to grow. Clare helped cut about 50 potential whips from the top branches and will use them to replace some that have died round a couple of bird-watching seats.

John started work on a gateway into the Top Strip so that he can take the flail mower in to keep the path cut - this will take a lot less time than weeding.

The cut Willow with plenty of growth left

Willow whips with even more potential growth

The pond camera has recorded the largest number of ducks on the pond together to date. While John and Clare often see Mallards on or leaving the pond in daytime, they have never seen a Mandarin duck there and then.

8th - 10th March

Clare planted 7 of the Willow cuttings for International Women’s Day. The trees will henceforth be known as the Seven Sisters.

Clare and John were delighted to welcome Rebecca from Miscreations Theatre. They talked about the possibility of bringing a Wilding Theatre workshop/performance piece to Liddells for schoolchildren. Much will depend on funding and logistics however the prospect is exciting.

The deer family run through the Pit Wood followed by the older buck. John is expecting the older doe to encourage the triplets to leave the patch soon.

A hare is caught in the snow at midday. 17 hours later and the snow is still falling thickly.

11th March

Clare freed the last of the Junipers. There are 16 plants established now.

She also staked the Seven Sisters while John did more work on the gateway.

Astute readers will notice there are only six willows pictured, the seventh is on the other side of the new gateway

Clare and John watched a Blue tit sit in the entrance to J1 for at least three minutes during which time the bird repeatedly looked into the box, bobbed its head and looked behind and around. As it is the females that build the nest, John and Clare wondered if the bird was claiming the site or signalling that she had found a site and was looking for a mate. Or both.

Today’s OED Word of the Day is ‘nunatak - an isolated peak of rock projecting above the surface of inland ice’. As the weather has returned to wintry conditions, Clare decided she had found a nunatak in the roadside pond.

12th March

John cut about 70 whips from neighbour Sylvia’s Willow tree. Clare had thought a good use for them would be to make a walk from the bottom of the Crag north across the wetland.

15th March

An abundance of frogspawn has appeared - more in the roadside pond, a large amount in the big pond, some in the Crag pond, and for the first time ever some in the vernal pond between the roadside and big ponds. It represents the potential for a lot of frogs and/or heron and newt food.

19th March

Clare and John set about planting the willow walk and by the end of the afternoon, and with cutting some of the longer whips, had 96 planted and a lot more in reserve to fill in gaps or use somewhere else. They are very grateful to Sylvia and have named the path Sylvia’s Avenue in her honour.

From The History of the Worthies of England, Thomas Fuller, 1662

Willows - ‘A sad tree, whereof such who have lost their love make their mourning garlands; and we know what exiles hung up their harps upon such doleful supporters. The twigs hereof are physic, to drive out the folly of children. This tree delighteth in moist places, and is triumphant in the Isle of Ely, where the roots strengthen their banks, and lop affords fuel for their fire. It groweth incredibly fast; it being a by-word in this county, ‘that the profit by willows will buy the owner a horse, before that by other trees will pay for his saddle.’ Let me add, that if green ash may burn before a queen, withered willows may be allowed to burn before a lady.’

Hal, Beth and Juno arrived for some outdoor activity and built a shelter, used the story-telling circle fittingly, investigated frogspawn and lots more besides.

Note the camouflage face paint

Frogspawn - ‘it sprawls, cold and uncontainable, like jellyfish’. (from Still Water: the Deep Life of the Pond John Lewis-Stempel

20th March

World Rewilding Day.

John worked on the new gate and removed the cage round one of the first Horse Chestnuts Clare and John had planted in the Top Strip, replacing it with a cage to protect the trunk from fraying and nibbling.

21st March

World Poetry Day.

I love the little pond to mark at spring
When frogs & toads are croaking round its brink
When blackbirds yellow bills gin first to sing
& green woodpecker rotten trees to clink
I love to see the cattle muse & drink
& water crinkle to the rude march wind
While two ash dotterels flourish on its brink
Bearing key bunches children run to find
& water buttercups they're forced to leave behind.

John Clare

22nd - 23rd March

John and Clare played at The Flintstones - Clare had spotted a pie of discarded stones by the roadside near home, so she and John bagged them up and used them to fill ruts on the Top Grazing roadway. They then went to the Top Strip and began their annual check to see which trees needed maintenance,

Evidence of fraying on saplings in the Orchard suggest that the buck is now, as some writers describe, ‘in hard horn’. John points out that this description is incorrect as roe deer antlers are made of bone, not horn. Synchronously the latest news from The Deer Society (23rd March) included the following: ‘Regular readers may be amazed just how often we encounter the common mistake of referring to deer antlers as horns. It's not surprising,  given how last year one celebrity wildlife expert on a popular wildlife show,  made this very mistake in front of millions of viewers…Deer are unique in being the only animals to produce antlers.  They are normally cast and regrown annually in pairs and are produced by the males of all deer species with the exception of the musk and water deer.  Although it is abnormal for the females of any other deer species to grow antlers, female reindeer are the only ones to do so habitually.

Antler growth and casting is controlled by a number of hormones, the principal one being the hormone testosterone whose production is governed by daylight length.  The growing antler is living bone which is covered by a furry skin called velvet which supplies it with oxygen and nutrients. 

At the end of the growth cycle, the velvet is lost and the material within dies to become hard and insensitive.   After a few months the join between antler and skull weakens and the antlers fall off.  The process of regrowth begins again almost immediately in most cases.

Horns, on the other hand, consist of a living bone projecting from the skull that never dies back and is covered by a sheath of a tough protein called keratin, the same material found in hair, hooves, fingernails, feathers and claws.  Horns are grown by ruminant animals such as goats, sheep, cows and antelope.  They are generally retained throughout an animal’s life and continue to develop as it matures. 

There is only one exception to this rule, the Pronghorn antelope of North America which sheds and regrows its horn sheath every year.  This interesting animal is really neither a deer nor an antelope, although it is related to both, belonging in a distinct family of its own.

Somewhat confusingly, and although now considered by many to be a somewhat archaic term, it is still quite correct to refer to a deer that has shed the velvet on its newly grown antlers as being in ‘hard horn’.’ bds.org.uk

26th March

As soon as John and Clare arrived this morning they heard a Chiffchaff calling and then saw the bird in the old Alder near the spoil heaps. As soon as Clare tried recording the song, the bird flew away and went silent.

With a large bunch of Sylvia’s Willows remaining, John and Clare planted more round the two bird-watching seats, removing dead shoots and replanting outside the membrane floor this time.

Clare spotted a Great Diving Beetle making its way along the grass path away from the big pond. Apparently they use damp soil by the edge of ponds in which to pupate.

A heron is seen in the big pond at night. (The true Night heron can be seen in waterside habitats in Southern and Central Europe.)

27th March

Clare had found another dumping of stone by the wayside so she and John went rubble-rousing again, collecting several bagfuls to fill ruts.

They then finished planting the remaining Willows on the Wetland.

Again the singing chiffchaffs were alert to the sound of Clare getting her phone out to record them, and went silent, though immediately resumed singing once she had put her phone away.

‘It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is from summer in the light, and winter in the shade.’ (from Great Expectations Charles Dickens) Taking advantage of the sunshine (the apiary is sheltered from the worst of the wind), Clare had a quick look at the hives and was disappointed to discover that only two of the four colonies had made it thought the winter. One might have been too small to survive; the other had obviously succumbed to damp. The hive was secondhand and maybe past its waterproof prime and needs replacing.

New Yellow Iris shoots are emerging.

‘…the shoots of yellow iris are pushing through in six-inch blades, a water-bed of daggers; every day they ‘weaponise’ towards the swords of their maturity…Yellow iris is yellow flag (on account of its large petals), is Jacob’s sword, is segg, from the Anglo-Saxon for ‘sword’. The knifeness of the young leaves means that the water-margin plant is occasionally nominated as the origin of the ‘fleur-de-lys’ of heraldry.’

from Still Water: The Deep Life of the Pond

28th March

A Mandarin duck appears on the trail camera in daylight for the first time. This is a male and you can see the distinctive markings: bushy orange ‘whiskers’, triangular orange ‘sails’ on the back and a black chest.

The camera then captures a pair of herons.

29th March

Clare and John collected more rubble for the roadway then went to the Orchard where they freed three trees from their cages - a Damson, a Wild Cherry and the large Bird Cherry. They have each reached a size where they are unlikely to be used by a fraying buck. John noticed that the Oak nearby has become even more of a veteran tree.

Freed Bird Cherry.

After several attempts Clare managed to record a Chiffchaff without it noticing her getting her phone out. The song is unremarkable and an easy one to learn.

30th March

The deer haven’t been seen on Liddells for a while, although John and Clare saw two groups of three out on a field very near to Liddells earlier this week. The trail camera however captured the three does near the big pond.

The film illustrated in 4th - 7th March is ‘Withnail and I’.

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.

December - hip hip hooray

Happy New Year to all Blog Readers - thank you for your support. We hope you continue to enjoy progress reports from Liddells. To see the Blog in all its glory, ie with trail camera footage included, click here and then click on Blog.

2nd December

John planted about 40 willow whips from neighbour Sylvia’s tree.

It is always heartening to see that there are hares thriving on Liddells. Here two rush through the Scrub.

3rd December

Clare made sure her bees were ready for the winter before she went in for her hip op. (The surgeon is also a beekeeper, so understood how the timing of the operation suited a beekeeper’s calendar. There is very little to do over winter except check the bees have plenty of food available.) Clare hefted the hives to assess the state of the stores and added boxes of fondant over holes in the crown board above the colony - the bees’ metabolism is slowed right down so they need to eat sugar directly without needing to process it, as they have to with syrup. Clare also added pillowcases stuffed with old sweaters under the roofs to provide some insulation and help absorb any damp.

John set about revamping a temporary log shelter near the bug hotel and worked on clearing a pine in the Pit Wood that had fallen during Storm Arwen, brashing the trunk ready for logging.

He brought home photographic evidence of how cold it was at Liddells.

5th - 6th December

John has moved his trail camera to the north-west corner of the Pit Wood as he recognises it is one of the deer’s favourite places. First on the scene was a pair of hares, then sure enough, the camera captured a doe couching and the young buck standing , then they reverse positions.

10th December

The cold brought a dense mist to Liddells that was slow to clear. Through the murk the camera in the Scrub has recorded the family of four roe; it is a while since they have all been seen together.

12th December

While Clare recovered in the warm at home, John’s car recorded that it was -5º while he worked at Liddells.

14th December

John is doing preparatory work prior to getting logs from the northern boundary under shelter. It remains cold.

Path past the roadside pond

Frosted rush

Path to orchard

16th December

John cleared an old gate and other debris from the north-west corner of the Pit Wood. He noticed how much less frosted the evergreens are than other growth.

20th -21st December

The Scrub camera captures the young buck on his own. The doe will have been encouraging him to go it alone. A Jay appears to be listening for its buried acorns.

22nd December

John wandered round Liddells with his camera instead of being there to work. Although he has included a couple of images of recent work, going up to play has sent him into reflective mode, if not a bit barking.

Refurbished log shelter

Enlarged Trapezium Bridge (for the log trailer)

The Big Pond,

the Roadside Pond…

and the Crag Pond

Dead Elm with regeneration

Orange Willows by the roadside pond - these are some of the very first Willow whips John and Clare planted, and were donated by Wenda and Matthew several years ago

Bark of a young Silver Birch…

and of an old one, probably past its canoe usefulness

The outflow from the spring, looking upstream. It is on the banks here that Primroses are abundant in the Spring

25th/26th December

A little bit of festive footage. A pair of Jays on Christmas Day and a single one pleasingly close to the camera on Boxing Day; also on Boxing Day a doe, a buck and another doe (probably one of the younger ones) are startled by nearby pheasant shooting and run through the Scrub.

John had to do some repairs to the meeting room roof to stop some leaks.

28th - 30th December

John set about various tasks - more work on widening the Trapezium Bridge, stone-walling on the northern boundary, adding a pallet to the temporary log shelter, clearing logs round the log shed, and making voice notes for tasks in the New Year with which, fingers crossed, Clare will be able to help. John saw three roe making their way out of the Scrub, across the Meadow and into the NE Strip. The roadside pond is filling up again with recent rain.

31st December

Three trail camera clips to end the year, a doe, a hare and the young buck - you can see the buttons developing on his head.

October - nature red in beak and talon, and under the wing

A reminder to access this Blog through the website - liddells.co.uk where you will find all the videos. They will be unlikely to play though your email, and may not even show up at all. There are some crackers this month.

Thanks to Jane E and Barbara for their suggestions for a collective noun for pond snails - ‘preponderance’ and ‘snuggle’.

1st October

Local farmer John brought 45 ewes to eat down the grass on the Top Grazing. Clare noticed two more wildflowers still in bloom that she hadn’t included last month: Field Scabious and Red Campion.

More rain has left the Big Pond within a few centimetres of being full. Water is flowing freely through the channel Clare cleared under the Alphabet Bridge.

Clare spotted a Common Puffball and an Orange Birch Bolete near the pond, and more Turkeytail fungus, this time on the trunk in front of the hide.

A badger goes through the Scrub

2nd October

A male Southern Hawker and a male Common Darter are still flying around the Big Pond and the pond level has gone up another couple of centimetres.

The trail camera shows a hare nibbling at a sapling. Hares and rabbits can damage young trees although there is often more publicity given to damage attributed to deer.

3rd October

John is interested in the varied diet of roe deer and was pleased to see a kid grazing on fungi.

Less than an hour after the kid’s browsing, a Sparrowhawk (TrogTrogBlog Chris thinks it is a juvenile), catches what looks like a Blackbird. The Sparrowhawk is mantling its prey. Mantling is hunching, crouching, or arching shoulders and spreading wings over a recent kill to conceal it from other birds and predators just as a mantle cloaks a person. In heraldry the mantling is the drapery or piece of cloth tied to the helmet above the shield in a coat of arms. In the video the sounds are coming from the captured bird. There is a ten minute gap in the footage so it is possible that the Sparrowhawk took its prey off, as Chris so vividly described, to eat it to death. A doe and kid wander through the scene of the crime and show how far their winter coats have developed. As if all the Sparrowhawk footage wasn’t striking enough, a Buzzard comes in to pick over the spoils. You can see just how much larger it is than a Sparrowhawk and it is exciting to have caught this bird on camera as well. A doe kid (who seems to end up with a feather on its nose), a hare and then a rabbit all seem to be investigating the odiferous interruption to their familiar route through the Scrub. Clare and John only saw the footage on their return on 10th October (see below) so Clare went up to see if any evidence remained. The feathers confirm the victim was indeed a Blackbird.

4th October

A stoat runs through the Scrub.

5th - 9th October

Clare and John spent a few days away visiting the RSPB reserve at Leighton Moss. Clare has had Bearded Tits, or as they are more properly called Bearded Reedlings, on her bird bucket list for some time and hoped that on her fourth visit to this reserve, she would be lucky and see them. The birds did not disappoint. Carl Linnaeus classified the birds in the genus Parus with the tits, however they were subsequently removed from this category and placed with the Parrotbills only to be recognised recently as a unique songbird with no other close relations, and placed in the monotypic family Panuridae (from the Greek panu, "exceedingly", and ουρά, "tail"). The male sports moustaches rather than a beard. Clare and John had other treats - a Great White Egret, a Bittern in flight, a Marsh Harrier hunting over and in the reeds, an otter and lots more besides. Clare decided that the time away might have been what some people call a ‘holiday’; she found the word between ‘hogwash’ and ‘holistic’ in her dictionary. Interesting concept. A selection of ‘holiday’ photography is included for Blog biodiversity.

Male Bearded Reedling on a grit tray. The birds spend the summer months feasting on insects. However, to avoid having to migrate south like the swallows and warblers, the Bearded Reedlings change their diet to reed seeds in winter. The seeds are extremely tough so the birds eat grit to make the seeds easy to digest.

10th October

The Big Pond is up to its overflow. The roadside pond is filling slowly although the shallow and deep ends have yet to join up.

A dog fox marks his territory in the Scrub.

12th October

John completed the exterior of the west wing of what he and Clare have decided to rename the Meeting Room. The new name embraces the broader use for the space that John and Clare hope will happen.

13th October

A sunny autumn day and there were several butterflies on the Michaelmas Daisies in the Meadow - a Peacock, two Commas, a Red Admiral and a Speckled Wood. The Speckled Wood proved too flighty to photograph. The flowers were also humming with bees foraging. Clare was pleased to see many honey bees adding to their stores for winter.

A large female Sparrowhawk perched briefly in an Ash tree in front of the hide before flying off. No birds were caught this time.

Clare has been waiting for the opportunity to include another crossword clue in the Blog. This time the clue was in the Guardian’s August Bank Holiday puzzle, a double-grid alphabetical crossword with no numbered lights; answers had to be filled in where they would fit. Maskarade, the setter, added a theme of given names: one of each pair of answers for a letter of the alphabet was a name, and the names beginning A-M went into one grid, and the names beginning N-Z went into the other grid. Fiendish. The clue in question is: ‘Oak’s sudden flourish mentioned by American and British Composer, Edmund, half-heartedly’ (7,5) The answer lies in the photograph (and at the end of this Blog post).

A roe doe and her kid show their gorget patches. Not all deer develop these white areas on their throat however when they do develop on an individual deer, they are most easily seen when they’re in their winter coat. ‘A gorget was originally a piece of material wrapped around a woman’s neck, during the period of time immediately after the fall of the Roman Empire. After that, it was used to describe the pieces of armour placed around the throat of a soldier, to protect them from injury during battle. Subsequently, as their effectiveness as protective amour waned, they were used as a badge to distinguish rank in the army. I’m not sure what the gorget’s functionality is on a roe deer. Unless, of course, the white patches to help with their protective camouflage, by breaking up the outline of the neck in heavy cover.’ (aboutdeer.com)

15th October

Today’s offering in Nature Writing for Every Day of the Year is all about Spindle Trees. Happily Clare had photographed the berries earlier in the week having not been wholly taken up with her house-keeping.

‘…the spindle is quite Japanese in its contortions; the boughs, with their twisted grey-green bark, seem positively to writhe, and the leaves and berries are sprinkled so sparsely that they seem to decorate rather than clothe its antiquity…the flame-coloured leaves and pink and orange berries of the spindle-wood glow like clusters of some strange exotic flower…there is something strangely unfamiliar about these berries of the spindle-wood - berries which open out into dull pink segments, like petals, and expose a bright orange centre, which is really a seed…There was a time, not so many generations ago, when even a woman who knew nothing of trees in general, and cared less, being wholly taken up with her housekeeping, would have recognised the spindle-wood at a glance. In those days when the spinning wheel flashed beside every hearth, and everything possible was made at home, the tough close-grained wood of the tree was in constant demand, and many a pair of lovers must have come to such a tree as this to choose branch and cut it, to make a spindle for the lady’s use.’

From The Peverel Papers, Flora Thompson

Today was meant to be a Green Gym day to plant trees, however it was raining substantially in the early morning so John and Clare cancelled. Then of course, the rain stopped. John and Clare decided to go up and plant some trees anyway. They planted 10 Oaks and decided on sites for more of the saplings they have waiting for the next Green Gym day in a week’s time. Clare protected the saplings with gorse, tied round the plants with Brambles.

More vulpine marking in the Scrub.

15th October

The Pit Wood camera recorded the first Fieldfares and Redwings of the winter foraging on the ground.

16th October

Clare and John saw Fieldfares flying over the Scrub and the Pit Wood.

Neighbour Chris brought his hydraulic log-splitter to Liddells and he and John worked their way through all the logs that John and Dave had brought from felling around the site. Clare indulged in one of her favourite activities, stacking the logs. Yes, she has read Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way, although she doesn’t aspire to such aesthetically pleasing log piles as the Scandinavians.

The roadside pond is filling slowly.

17th October

More Fieldfare sightings and Clare startled a Woodcock in the Scrub.

The doe with triplets spends time grooming one of the doe kids; the buck arrives, tries unsuccessfully to suckle and is subjected to a more intimate grooming.

18th - 19th October

A Tawny owl downs its prey in one and flies off; twenty minutes later it flies past the camera right to left (video not included); a minute after that the bird is on the ground again and eating something it as caught; in the early hours of the next morning it has yet again hunted successfully. The Scrub is clearly a place for small mammals. Or perhaps not, depending on whether you are an owl or a small mammal. The Barn Owl Trust has an information page about Tawny Owls. If you want to know more about their diet, click here.

21st October

Green Gym Day and the weather was on the side of planting and neighbouring farmer John had moved the sheep from the Top Grazing to the Wildflower Meadow. John and Clare were joined by six stalwart friends, one of whom brought additional trees he had grown at home, and they all set about planting 55 trees. An Apple and two Damson trees went into the Orchard, a Hazel and two Aspens were added to the Pit Wood and all the rest - Oaks, Beeches, Elm, Horse Chestnut, Willows - were planted at the east end of the Top Grazing. Each tree was given a protective circle of Gorse or Hawthorn secured round the sapling with bramble twine. Clare has devised this method after reading about how Gorse and Hawthorn scrub make perfect areas for trees to regenerate.

Walking through the Pit Wood Clare, John and Barry discovered a large area of Fly Agaric which was largely uneaten, unlike the ones in the Scrub.

The shallow and newly deep areas of the Roadside Pond have finally joined up.

After watching many hours of deer going through the Scrub, the sight of one of Texels came as a bit of a shock. Apparently it had gone awol on the trip down from the Top Grazing. It seems to have benefitted from the grazing.

22nd October

The old buck makes his way through the Pit Wood. You will see that tip of one side of his antlers has broken off.

Meanwhile in the Scrub, and much earlier than it has been seen before, the Tawny owl flies up on to a perch.

24th October

A hare and a kid browse together in the Pit Wood. Within seconds a stoat runs offstage then returns. The hare is eating apples Clare had put down in front of the camera in the hope of attracting Fieldfares and Redwings, however there are still plenty of berries on the trees for them to eat.

Later that same evening an owl is captured waiting for prey.

25th October

The Tawny Owl appears yet again in the Scrub, hunting successfully in the early hours of the morning and later in the evening.

Between the owl’s two appearances the camera captures two hares, a Jay and a high speed stoat, while in the Pit Wood a single Redwing is seen foraging in the leaf litter. Although the red under its wing is faint, the pale stripe over its eye is very clear.

30th October
Clare saw her first Goldcrest of the winter in a Hawthorn near the bee hives.

Crossword answer: Quercus rubra: Querc sounds like “quirk” = “sudden flourish” + US = “American” + RUB[b]RA = British composer Edmund.
Definition: “Oak” – the Northern Red Oak.










August - being driven round in circles

For new subscribers, it will be unlikely that you can watch the video footage through an email. We suggest that when you see the Blog email, go to liddells.co.uk and click on the Blog page. All the video clips will be there.

1st August

Clare and John visited the Knepp Estate in Sussex. This is where Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree have abandoned intensive farming in favour of a pioneering rewilding project. The Maori use the word kaitiakitanga, for ‘Guardianship or management, esp. of the natural resources of a place or area; environmental stewardship considered as a duty and responsibility of the inhabitants of an area’ (OED Word of the Day 04.07.22). The undertaking is inspiring, based as it is in respect for and trust of nature, and those qualities were apparent throughout. Although not the best time of year to see some of the more exciting species that have returned there, Clare and John each saw a Turtle Dove in fight, many White Storks and were astonished that a pair of red deer stags grazed within ten yards of the hut where they were staying. There were numerous Gatekeeper butterflies which Clare had not knowingly seen before; Clare noticed a Common Field Grasshopper had landed on her jacket, a short distance from its usual habitat of unimproved grassland, which was there in abundance.

Meanwhile, back on Liddells, the trail camera in the Scrub captured footage of a neighbour’s dog chasing one of the roe triplets. The doe and other two kids appear, following the scent and much alarmed. Clare and John are now waiting for any footage that shows the kid has been reunited with its family.

2nd August

Tim and Jane thought they had seen a Purple Hairstreak butterfly on the large oak on the Wetland last evening, so set off again this evening to try their luck. They were successful and saw a couple on a tree that overhangs the north boundary near the bee hives, although photographing the butterflies proved hard.

4-5th August

Clare has learned a lot about roe deer from John and was therefore excited to discover what she believed could be a driving circle in the Scrub, a clearly trampled circle round a Hawthorn. In the rut, a buck, sensing a doe coming into oestrus, will quite literally, drive her round in circles or a figure of eight until she is receptive. This may happen over several days. The buck appeared early in the day of the 5th. John came to look at the circle and agreed with Clare’s speculation so Clare moved the Scrub camera to focus on the central Hawthorn. Later that day the doe appeared, the buck is seen in pursuit, and a single kid follows on its own.

Clare worked some more on digging out the roadside pond while it remains dry.

6th August

Clare found a Ground Beetle cloaked in a spider’s web on the brush in the Necessarium. Ground Beetles are often found under the bark of decaying wood, so perhaps the sawdust was the attraction. The brush didn’t seem to be decaying.

The single kid appears on its own for several minutes in the morning and in the afternoon, near the Hawthorn in the Scrub.

7th August

Clare and John celebrated nine years of kaitiakitanga of Liddells by getting on with their chosen projects - Clare digging out the roadside pond and John working on the classroom. Mindful of the damage caused by Storm Arwen, he has decided to put shutters on the openings, which can be fixed open if there are weather warnings, thus allowing any storm winds to go through the structure without lifting off the roof.

Clare’s hunch proved to be well founded although the main driving circle proves to be to the right of the Hawthorn. The doe was captured hanging around the circle early in the day. The drive happens in the early evening. John has edited together all the clips from the trail camera and you can see the buck driving the doe for several minutes. There are calls audible throughout the drive. John is unsure whether these are from the buck or the doe. She seems to tire towards the end and then returns on her own, presumably after mating. John says that the buck will mate with the younger does first, hence selecting the doe with only one kid. John is very pleased to have footage of a drive.

8th August

Clare, having unsuccessfully tried to find Purple Hairstreaks on previous days, not realising that they are usually seen in the early evening in sunny, still conditions, rather than earlier in the day, was pleased to see Tim also out to look for them. Tim showed Clare exactly where to look and there indeed were a couple of the butterflies, just visible to the naked eye, however binoculars gave a better view.

9th August

Tom made 30 bales from the hay on the Wildflower Meadow. Clare and John enjoyed seeing the old-fashioned rectangular bales. Clare, finding it hard to know how deep was deep enough, saw the heap of soil she had removed and decided she had added sufficient depth to the roadside pond. She started work on uncovering the edging stones that had become overgrown.

Giant haystack not

11th August

Tim managed to get a photograph of a Purple Hairstreak and has helpfully circled its whereabouts! He pointed out that, rather than purple, the wing colour appears rather reddish.

13th August

Barry told Clare that in the north of England and in Scotland, the process of moving hay out of the fields and storing it in a barn is called ‘leading the hay’. Clare had not heard this before although then synchronously heard John use exactly this phrase later in the day. Barry also demonstrated the use of some rather nifty straps with ratchets to secure the hay on the trailer. Just as he was explaining that if you threaded them the wrong way, they were almost impossible to undo, John provided a visual aid for this problem. John and Barry led the hay to Barry’s barn. John finished untangling the strap by early evening. While investigating the phrase Barry had introduced, Clare discovered a photograph in National Galleries Scotland entitled ‘Leading Hay’. She rather wished she had worn a boater for the Liddells event.

Clare started work on the north side of the pondside road, spotting a Small Copper nearby.

14th August

Clare finished uncovering the stones on the south side of the road, so turned her attentions to the north, remembering that when the large digger had come to further dig out the big pond, it had displaced several of the road edge stones.

15 - 18th August

The classroom building work continues. You can see the first shutter in place.

Clare’s work on the road edge continues.

One of the trail cameras, now returned to the Pit Wood, shows a doe with two kids. There has been no footage showing all three kids since the beginning of the month.

A hen pheasant has a young chick. This is quite late in the season as pheasants typically raise a brood between April and June with the incubation period lasting on average between 22 and 28 days.

With no hare on the blog thus far in the month, here is a hare. John is seeing hares regularly on the Top Grazing while he works on the classroom. The hares may be using the hay bales as shelter from the sun. They seem unperturbed by John’s activities. He has seen five out at the same time.

21st August

A busy day. Jane B had arranged to bring several family members to Liddells. Zoe, who is studying agri-forestry, came early for a tour with Clare. There was plenty of activity on the pond and Zoe managed to capture a shot of a Common Darter at rest. Georgie and Charlie had fun testing their strength pushing bales and in the process found a caterpillar of the White Ermine Moth. The contrast in colouration between caterpillar and moth is striking. A visit to the hide entertained.

Male Common Darter

White Ermine Moth caterpillar

Georgie focussing on the birds

This is what the birds see

Charlie inspecting the results of his pond-dipping

Not a masked invader but Clare in her bee suit

Checking all the struts are there on the Alphabet Bridge

Climbing the hay bales is always fun

John lifted a roofing sheet from a pile on the ground to find two Violet Ground beetles underneath. They quickly scuttled for cover, however Clare managed to photograph one of them.

Clare completed a butterfly transect as Tim and Jane are away. Clare saw 8 different species - Large White 7, Green-veined White 4, Small Skipper 1, Red Admiral 3, Peacock 1, Speckled Wood 5 and Wall Brown 1. The Wall Brown was the first she had seen this year. Here is a photograph of one she saw just six days later while she was on a walk with Pat.

Violet Ground beetle

While Jane et al dipped the pond, Clare inspected her bees and was delighted to discover that the most recent split had worked, and the nucleus hive had frames of capped brood, indicating a successfully mated queen. Clare began the season with two colonies and has increased them to six. This hot, dry summer has offered ideal conditions for new queens to mate, unlike in previous years where cold, wet spells have compromised successful mating.

22nd - 23rd August

Clare was relieved to finish restoring the roadside edges. She then turned her attention back to the big pond and she and John started tackling more of the invasive Branched bur-weed and Hard and Soft rush.

John used surplus roofing sheets bought for the hide at a farmers’ sale three years ago, to create a weed-suppressing sub-floor for the classroom. Perhaps also a Violet Ground beetle hideaway.

24th August

The single kid has appeared on its own several times in the Scrub, however today the doe and kid appear together.

25th August

A doe followed by a single kid walk in front of the trail camera. Clare and John were relieved that the next clips show all three of the triplets. This is the first time they have all been recorded since the dog was seen chasing a kid.

In the evening a pair of hares run through the Scrub.

26th August

Clare and John were delighted to welcome TrogTrogBlog Chris to Liddells. They took a scenic route to the big pond where male and female Emerald damselflies, male and female Common Darters and two male Southern Hawkers kept them entertained. The Southern Hawkers frustrated all attempts to have their photographs taken, however you can see how spectacular they are here. While watching the activity on the pond, Tim and Jane appeared doing a butterfly transect so Clare was able to introduce three members of the Liddells curatorium (‘A group of curators (in various senses), typically acting as an advisory body.’ OED Word of the Day 28.08.22) to each other.

Clare and John, not having heard or seen a Greenfinch on Liddells for months, noticed a pair coming to drink at the pond. John managed to get a photograph of one.

He also took a couple of images that showed autumn on its way.

After Chris had left Clare noticed a dead hare near the log shed. There was no obvious cause of death.

Not long till hedgerow jelly making time

Not for the hedgerow jelly, these are poisonous, however thrushes can feed on the berries, as they are immune to its poisons, and scatter the seeds abroad.

27th August

Clare found, if not a fairy ring, at least a fairy semi-circle, in the Scrub near to the driving circle.

Fairy semi-circle

John moved the hare’s carcass and saw two Common Sexton beetles scuttle away into the grass. A hare would seem to be a bit too big for them to bury, however they may well have been feeding on the corpse. Apparently the beetles can sense rotting flesh at a distance of two miles.

John began flooring the west end of the classroom.

I’m not floored

John and Clare were most surprised to see footage of a Woodcock in the Scrub. Readers may remember that there were clips of Woodcock in the Scrub last winter, however John and Clare had always thought that the birds were migrants rather than resident. You can hear a Tawny Owl calling in the background. Shortly after the Woodcock had left, a stoat appeared.

On their way to the hide, John noticed a frog sitting in the roadside pond Clare wondered if it was optimistic about the prospect of water, in which case it could be a Froghoper.

While John progressed with the classroom, Clare turned her attention to the damp section of the Wildflower Meadow and dug out the mint that was beginning to take over again. She also lifted and split Yellow Iris and Purple Loosestrife to replant round the ponds.

28th August

More activity in the Scrub. A Tawny Owl appears in front of the camera, then about twenty minutes later, the buck comes through. John has always said that after the rut, the bucks seem to vanish, however this one is still around.

A Great Tit flies at the camera. This happens again round about midday. The bird can’t be looking for a nesting site at this time of year.

Meanwhile, John decided to put a trail camera on the Meadow. He and Clare have seen deer on and nearby there quite often. His choice proved successful and a doe appears several times, again challenging the received wisdom that roe are crepuscular. The camera is pointing east.

29th August

Clare worked on the big pond again while John began the doorway for the classroom. They both spotted a new bit of excavation on the path near the hide. Best guess is a vole hole.

While at the hide there was a moment when there was a flurry of alarm calls, all the birds flew for cover and before Clare had finished saying, “Where’s the Sparrowhawk?” a female flew across the feeders. No birds were taken however it was a while before they reappeared, led by two Marsh tits.

Kathryn arrived with a trailer full of hazel seedlings which had germinated in pots in her garden, possibly from nuts buried by squirrels.

Manmade doorway

Mammalmade doorway (the tunnel is about 6-7 centimetres wide)

When Clare checked the trail camera she found several clips of a grey squirrel in the Scrub. There are often clips of grey squirrels and normally she would delete such footage muttering darkly, however, this time the videos raised a grudging smile. The squirrel’s activities lasted for a couple of minutes; John has stitched the videos together. The animal seems to be playing in a way reminiscent of stoats gambolling.

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.

November - time to plant trees and a devastating end to the month

Clare has been saving a quotation from George Orwell for this month as Scots Pine saplings, and trees grown from acorns and conkers by Sally are ready to plant.

‘The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.’ (From a 1946 essay in his ‘As I Please’ column in Tribune, and quoted by Rebecca Solnit in an article entitled ‘‘Every time you commit an antisocial act, push an acorn into the ground,’ The Guardian, 16.10.21.

1-11th November

John undertook preparations for planting, collecting stakes, cutting wire, strimming, removing turves.

Clare thinks readers need at least one hare a month. This one below is in the Scrub. The hare in the video clip is in the Pit Wood.

13th November

John and Clare planted ten Scots Pines on the Wetland, caging the five larger ones and tubing the others. Having heard on The Archers that ‘the thorn is mother to the oak,’ Clare protected the caged saplings from hares and rabbits with motherly gorse cushions.

Scots Pine with protective gorse

14th November

It appears that one of the regular foxes is a vixen

15th November

One hare is a treat, two hares doubly so.

16th November

Clare and John have been watching out for the return of the Woodcock and today John’s friend Mike saw two flying from the Scrub towards the Top Grazing.

19th November

Five trees planted today - two Oaks and two Horse Chestnuts that Sally had grown and donated, and a Crab Apple that Pat had ordered from Northumberland County Council and given to Liddells. NCC had offered a tree per household as part of their commitment to act in the face of climate change. There was such demand that all trees available were taken up this year, however they are repeating the scheme nest year.

The OED Word of the Day today is ‘Wildland’: Land in a natural or uncultivated state (also in plural in same sense). Also: a region or tract of such land. Clare and John hope that Liddells has some of this quality.

21st November

Clare spent a delightful afternoon on Liddells with Bridie Jackson, ‘a musical artist based in the North-East, well known within the region and beyond for her work as a composer, performer and creative practitioner’ (also currently leading Tynedale Community Choir while Kathyrn is on maternity leave). Bridie is working with Bethan Maddocks a visual artist who has been commissioned by Museums of Northumberland. Bethan is creating a hive to sit inside a building at Woodhorn Museum and Bridie is setting Kipling’s poem ‘The Bee-Boy’s Song’ to music, and creating a soundscape for the installation. Bridie interviewed Clare about bee-keeping, particularly about the tradition of telling the bees secrets, and visited the hives where she was able to record the bees. Clare could hear where the colony were clustering in the hive from the volume of the sound as Bridie moved the microphone across the entrance. Bridie sent a snippet of her first ‘play around’ and gave permission for it to be included in the blog. The bees in the background are in Hive1.

27th November

Readers will be aware of Storm Arwen, which hit the north-east with some ferocity last night. John went up to see how Liddells had been affected, expecting to see some trees down. Trees have indeed fallen, perhaps six to eight, and several limbs broken off. However he was in no way prepared for the sickening sight that greeted him. All four sheds and the Necessarium have gone. The tool shed and the Necessarium have been lifted up, overturned and are now on the far side of the fence between the Top Grazing and the Top Strip. The hay shed, log shed and former pony shelter have been reduced to planks and are scattered widely over the area behind where the sheds were. John and Clare are finding it hard to know where to start with clearing up. The shepherd’s hut, bird hide , bees and bee shed are all fine thank goodness. And no-one was hurt.

It has also been snowy and very cold on site, so not the most pleasant of conditions in which to work. Susie Dent offers some regional words for cold in Word Perfect on 17th November: ‘ ‘nithered’ is a favourite in northern England and Scotland, and ‘shrammed’ survives in the south and south-west); there is also the evocative ‘hunchy’ in Cambridgeshire. These words often derive from dialect verbs meaning ‘to shrivel’ or ‘to make numb’.’ Dent also refers to ‘some now long-lost words English dialect words that describe November’s comfortless elements. They include the word ‘gwenders’, defined in the English Dialect Dictionary as ‘a disagreeable tingling sensation in the extremities during cold weather’.

John and Clare have retrieved footage from both trail cameras. The scene in the Scrub, captured at 9.30 am, was after the storm had begun to die down. Three hours later all is calm in the Pit Wood.

While the storm’s destruction has been metaphorically ‘thwankin’ (‘from Scots, a thudding term applied to clouds that gather together in thick and gloomy succession’, Clare found metaphorical ‘Devil’s smiles’ (in Yorkshire, ‘gleams of sunshine among the darkest clouds’) in the catkins appearing on some of the young Hazels in the Top Strip.

Life goes on. As do the deer, although the wounded doe kid has not been seen since the beginning of the month. John says to notice in the second video the buds developing on the buck kid’s head which are signs of the antlers that will grow.

This Silver birch at the western top of the Crag shows some of the force of the storm.

30th November

John and Clare have been making inroads on the damage. It seems possible that, with help, the tool shed could be manoeuvered back into place although it will need a new base constructing before that can happen.

In checking through the Blog before publication, Clare was struck by the opening quotation and how poignant it seems at this end of the month. John has been given permission to include a photograph taken of the wood that lies just a few hundred yards from Liddells. The image shows just a fraction of the damage the wood sustained.

All the more reason to keep planting trees.

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

January - brings more snow

1st January

John and Clare chose a site on the Wetland for 7 Scots Pines, one of which is a memorial tree for land neighbour Kay. John removed posts and rails from outside the sheds, no longer needed without the ponies, ready to make a protective cage for Kay’s tree.

Rails for recycling

First post in place

Clare, to mark her bird hide’s first birthday, recorded the visits made to the bird table within 5 minutes. The Coal Tits (lowest in the titmice pecking order and therefore speedy opportunists) made 63 visits; Blue Tits 16, Great Tits 12 and Nuthatch(s) 8. 99 visits in total. Meanwhile all the other feeders were being visited too.

2nd January

John worked on the Scots Pine cage and then enjoyed using his camera.

Walking on thin ice

Walking on thin ice

Evidence of secret skaters

6th January

John counted 130 visits to the bird table within 5 minutes. He is frustrated by the holes he has dug for the Scots Pines filling up with rain and melt water as soon as his back is turned.

7th January

John panted the six small Scots Pines with tubes and stakes.

9th January

John needed height to drive in the posts for the tree cage and decided standing in the trailer would work. Accordingly he set off to collect the quad bike in order to tow the trailer into place. He discovered that the first of the two locks to the container was frozen, and after much huffing and puffing, risk of hyperventilation and of becoming a Big Bad Wolf, the lock gave. John then discovered the second lock was frozen too. More lupine activity. After freeing the locks, John found that the mechanism enabling reverse gear had frozen too, so he had to push the quad out of the container over frozen mud, into a position where he could go forwards. Having mastered this challenge he arrived at the first of the field gates on the route to Liddells. This was shut and held in place by deeply frozen muddy ruts and ridges. Undeterred he dug the gate free and proceeded to the next gate. Same process. At last he arrived at Liddells only to find that the lock on the bottom gate had frozen too. Lesser mortals might have given up at this point. John remembered he had a flask of peppermint tea with him and sacrificed it to the icy lock. The lock gave. After all this, John managed to get two posts driven into place. What a hero. And a modest round of applause for peppermint tea.

10th January

Spurning any need for a rest after the previous days efforts, John returned to the tree cage challenge and made good progress in spite of the water filling the hole.

12th January

Monica came to help plant the tree for Kay.

15th January

John checked on the bees’ fondant supplies again. Mathilda has given Clare another rich source of words and etymology in Word Perfect by Susie Dent. Dent has several usable words today alongside the main one, ‘hibernacle’: the place a hibernating animal passes the winter months. Bees don’t hibernate but are ‘dormative’ (inclined to sleep through the winter) and they are definitely ‘smudging’ at the moment (remaining snug and quiet). Alternative snuggling words she offers are ‘croozling’, ‘snerdling’, ‘snoodling’, snuzzling’ and ‘neezling’. Clare thinks the bees probably try them all.

21st January

The snow melt and rain have made Liddells very wet. John found that water was running from the old site of the spring, several metres from its current position. The stream below the spring was running very fast and full.

The old site of the spring

Downstream

26th January

Storm Christophe has brought down a Hawthorn in the Scrub. You can see from the photographs that there had been a ‘smirr’ (a smattering of snow, Word Perfect 12.01.21). Mel came to help John and together they removed the last fence posts from the west end of the Wetland, moved the reclaimed posts to be used for quad bike gateways into the Top Strip, dealt with the fallen Hawthorn and rescued a frog. Clearly the last task was the most important. John and Mel were walking past the scrape pond on the Wetland and John spotted the frog, which was perfectly still and John and Mel wondered if it was stuck and frozen into the ice. Mel tapped the ice round the frog with his spade and the frog reacted but didn’t move away, so Mel continued to cut round it, made a little ice plate and lifted the frog out and put in on the grass. After a moment or two, the frog freed itself and slowly hopped into the grass.

Fence fully removed

Post on its way to the Top Strip

30th January

It’s the weekend of the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch and Clare opted to do her watching and counting at Liddells. She recorded the following largest numbers of species during the hour: 3 Pheasants, 2 Blackbirds, 3 Robins, 2 Dunnocks, 4 Chaffinches, 9 Coal Tits, 6 Blue Tits, 5 Great Tits, 2 Nuthatches and 5 Bullfinches. The Bullfinches were a particular treat. They didn’t come to the feeders but were perched in a nearby Hawthorn. The Marsh Tits stayed away on this occasion however Clare had watched them a couple of days ago. While she was there she experienced a ‘flindrikin’ (a slight snow shower, Word Perfect, 12.01.21).

31st January

Inspired by gardener Alys Fowler’s column in The Guardian yesterday, Clare went to have a look at the Hazels and Alders. She was not disappointed, however this far north the female flowers are a little later to appear.

Clare also visited the hide again and was delighted to see 8 Long-tailed tits on the feeders. They didn’t make it into The RSPB count, however it is always a delight to see them.

Welcome glimpses of life on this last day of the month.

Male Hazel catkins

Male Alder catkins …

…an cones

December -

1st December

George and Gavin returned to Liddells to work in the Top Strip. They cleared a one metre strip along the inside of the road wall, thus reducing Clare’s five year plan to a possibly more manageable two. They completed all of this by 4pm. The work will certainly make pulling brambles out of, and repairing the wall considerably easier. They created windrows with the cut material that was too small for logs. The windrows add additional habitat.

A wall awaiting repair

Chain saw sharpening for the last stretch

Windrow

2nd December

The path from the bottom gate appears to be a roe deer highway.

Dave arrived ready to play fast and loose with the rest of the earthfasts. He removed four more boulders.

Rob continues his efforts to subdue the mole population on the Top Grazing. He has caught six moles to date. Wetter weather makes his job more difficult as the moles dig deeper. When the moles surface after this the molehills compete in size with the boulders.

John saw the first Woodcock of the year in the Pit Wood.

Hal and Beth arrived for a foraging session.

Roe roads

Mole subways

Clare threw down the gauntlet and Dave accepted the challenge

This earthloose enabled a new small pond to fill up

Beth transformed her foraged material

10th December

Clare set about a project she had been putting off for a long while and tackled the large bag of wax she had collected over four years left over from honey spinning and frame replacement. The wax first has to melted and filtered. An old pair of stockings proved to be ideal although the photo does make the process appear more sinister than it is. After no more wax can be squeezed out, the bundles are removed; the wax cools and sets on the surface of the water and can be lifted off. It then needs to be reheated and filtered a second time. The clean wax can be used for cosmetics, polish or, Clare’s choice this time, waxed food wrappers. The residue is called ‘slumgum’ (a sure candidate for an OED Word of the Day), and can be used to make fir cone fire lighters.

Recovered wax before processing

First melting and straining

Cleaned was

17th December

Rachel and Adele returned to the hide for some music making and treated the birds to a carol concert.

21st December

John has been continuing his work on the interior of the shepherd’s hut and made a foldaway table.

Mel arrived to help John free some of the Junipers from their tubes and create alternative protection. This should help the shrubs grow to their natural form which is bushier at the base than the tubes allow.

The padlock enjoying its very own table

Freed Junipers

22nd December

Several blog readers have commented on the absence of John’s photographs recently. Spurred on by this and by his attempts to address his NRS (Non Relaxation Syndrome), John spent a happy few hours wandering around Liddells with his camera.

27th December

Dave brought what he likes to call ‘his beheading axe’ to some of the wood George had taken out of the Top Strip. The log shed is the beneficiary.

30th December

The last footage of the year from the trail camera which is back in the Pit Wood. Two roe does seem to be playing Follow My Leader and a hare is perhaps trying to catch up with a tortoise.

John and Clare wish all Blog readers a less complex New Year!

24th December

John did a wintery walk.

Looking into the Orchard

The Big Pond. John has no skates.

September - log slog

Corrections

Many thanks to Chris Wren for both his support of this blog and for sharing his extensive knowledge of the natural world. Chris noticed that the female ‘Ruddy Darter’ on the July blog was a female Common Darter as it had yellow lines along its legs. Also the insect on Sneezewort in the same blog post was not a wasp as ‘it didn’t have a wasp waist’ - it seems so obvious when pointed out - and likely to be a sawfly, possibly Tenthredo arcuata. If readers haven’t visited Chris’ blog https://trogtrogblog.blogspot.com/ - a name to delight bird lovers, it’s well worth the time. Chris is a naturalist, bee-keeper and superb wildlife photographer, offering still and moving images of the natural world backed by experience, knowledge and statistics. He also has a fondness for the Sparrowhawks that visit his garden.

1st September

John and Clare worked on some wall clearing and repair on the south boundary. While removing some weed from the big pond, Clare inadvertently scooped up a dragonfly which she manipulated onto the net handle as it needed to dry its wings. There was an ideal opportunity for a photograph. It flew off after a few minutes and resumed its habit of frustrating John’s pursuit of a photograph by being constantly darting about, or in this instant, hawking.

Female Southern Hawker

4th September onwards

With the quad bike now a part of the Liddells workforce John set about sawing in the Pit Wood, creating piles of logs both to dry in the log shed and to take home ready for burning this winter.

Logs awaiting transport

4th/5th September

The deer are still favouring the stump circle for their food and make frequent appearances on the trail camera. John was intrigued by footage of the doe behaving warily when the buck appears. He has not seen this behaviour before and can think of no reason why the buck should be a threat to the doe. Suggestions?

6th September

John managed to work out a system to connect guttering on the sheds to the bowser; this will mean that there is rainwater available for the shepherd’s hut when needed. Clare split a clump of Purple Loosestrife in the wet area of the Meadow and replanted it on the banks of the big pond. She also pounced on new mint growth and continued Mel’s eradication work.

Adding to the multifarious uses of duct (or duck) tape

13th September

68 sheep arrived to eat off the Top Grazing. Some of them have used posts placed to alert drivers to the presence of protruding bedrock, as back scratchers.

Aid for sleeplessness

Guess whose backside was itchy

14th September

Friends Chris and Mac visited and Mac’s hat played host to a dragonfly. Frustratingly it was hard to get close enough for a detailed photograph without the probability of scaring it away - the dragonfly not the hat. Later their dog sniffed out a bird carcass, or broken bird as Juno would say. Chris and Mac happened to look up and saw Crow wings in the tree above. Mac thought this might suggest a Peregrine kill although it could have been a female Sparrowhawk. Next day Clare took John to see the wings and noticed below them a twig covered in a black jelly fungus that is known as Witches’ Butter. So raptor or coven. Clare favours the more imaginative explanation.

A death has occurred

Sorcery dairy produce

Clare thinks the dragonfly resembles a raised eyebrow on the hat face

15th and 22nd September

With little opportunity for stand-up comedy at the moment, Hal has generously offered time to help on Liddells, however he revealed his true motivations in a post-script to his offer: ‘Now a cynic might suggest that this coincides suspiciously with the acquisition of your new four-wheeled friend, and to that I’d say, “Yes, yes it does”.’ So everyone’s a winner. Hal has worked phenomenally hard and helped bring large loads of logs out of the Pit Wood and North-east Strip for drying in the log shed at Liddells and stacking at home, and he has moved dumpy bags of chip to the Top Strip for Clare to top up the path. Much as John and Clare miss Paul, they have to admit that Hal power is more productive that one horse power. The sheep proved to be interested in Hal’s activity and so Hal had a go at shepherding.

Transport awaiting logs

A small fraction of the logs carried, stacked and awaiting splitting. (Hal’s next job.)

19th September

Clare bought a broom for the hide. John was proud of his caption choice.

Hide and sweep

20th September

Clare decided it was time to risk checking on supersedure progress in Hive 1. She was surprised to see capped brood that had obviously been there a while and then delighted to realise why - there was the Scarlet Pimpernel queen quietly going about her business. Either the supersedure larva failed, or a new queen hatched and was dispatched by the reigning monarch. Either way, the colony is in a strong state to go into the winter. Clare also decided to begin the process of removing the remaining honey super from Hive 2, which still had some honey not stolen by robber bees. She added a clearer board under the super. The clearer board has two "tunnels" leading to each end and a centre chamber in which the bees gather when initially leaving the super. The bees pass through the opening in the board and into the escape. The tunnels are soon discovered and the bees quickly stampede into the chamber below created by the deep rim and attracted by the scents of the brood body through the latticed structure of the escape. The idea being that the bees descend to the brood chamber but cannot quickly work out how to get back up again. (Thanks to Thorne bee-keeping suppliers for this explanation.) Or so the theory goes. Clare and bee-buddy Barry have had varying degrees of success with the boards.

21st September

Clare returned early in the morning to see if the clearer board had done its job. There were still quite a few bees in the super however they were quite docile (or tired from a night on the honey), and easily brushed off the frames. Clare then had to remove the clearer board and queen excluder - the bees must be left with syrup to replace the removed honey and the queen must have access to this in case there is insufficient for her in the brood chamber. The bees were not quite so docile during this procedure, presumably annoyed that a) they had been woken early on a cool morning b) they were not best pleased that their honey had disappeared and c) they don’t enjoy puzzles, mazes in particular. Fortunately Clare and her assistant John left with no stings.

Concerned that all the logging activity would deter the deer from visiting the stumps, John moved the trail camera to the main path through the Pit Wood.

22nd September

Clare planted Ragged Robin plugs that she had grown on from seedlings Lesley had kindly donated, Lesley having grown them from seed she had collected.

John and Clare finally got round to adding the capping stones to their wall repair. Apparently one of their land neighbours had thought the stones had been stolen and was pleased to see their return.

26th September

A tick for one of the items that has been on the to-do list for a long time. John repurposed another of the insulators from redundant telegraph poles as an outside door handle for the shepherd’s hut. Clare has discovered that not only do people collect these insulators but that there is a Professor of Telegraphpoleology at the Faculty for insulators, crossarms and dropwires at Frome University, whose garden ornamentation is made entirely from scrap telegraph pole parts. A door handle seems quite unimaginative in comparison. Clare thinks it is splendid.

26th - 29th September

The trailer has needed attention for some time and the log loads this month left the base pretty ropey with logs falling down the gap between the floor and the sides. Clare has noticed bits of trailer base and sides strewn on the ground wherever the quad bike has gone. John set about making the trailer sound again after wondering whether he could propose it as a challenge for The Repair Shop.

Meanwhile Clare made progress on her plan to eradicate as many bramble and nettle roots from the south boundary wall as possible, repairing any stonework as necessary and creating a path on the inside of the wall. She was a bit disconcerted to find stones fallen away from the base at one point where the wall was very high and she was working below, however she was able to dig up some uncut stones from near by to fill the gap and shore the wall up. Working on the outside of the wall she discovered that the medieval cross base had not been hewn as she had thought, but the rectangular hole for the cross had simply (or not so simply) been chiselled out of a large lump of bedrock. The base does not extend through the wall, rather the wall has been built to incorporate the bedrock.

For a while John has sensed there have been more deer than he previously thought on Liddells. The trail camera has confirmed his hunch. As far as John can tell, the deer are all does. John and Clare are delighted to see evidence of the hare again though not so happy to see the squirrels. John has ‘broken’ at least twenty in the last few months. There is clearly more work to be done.

All bottomed out. A bottomless pit of work.

Shoring

A section of bramble and nettle free wall with the cross base excavated

30th September

The firm that were due to fit the wood burner in the shepherd’s hut tomorrow asked if they could do the work today. An excellent way to end the month. John occupied himself with trailer improvements while the stove went in. Clare photographed evidence of more digging, this time in the Orchard. Unfortunately the site would mean miles of footage of wavy grass if the trail camera were to be positioned nearby. Although the weather had turned cold overnight, once the stove was lit the hut warmed up very quickly. One of the workers who installed the stove went the extra mile and finished John’s painting on the trailer while John and Clare enjoyed watching the fire in the stove. Superb service!

British Racing Green is John’s colour of choice for the trailer. He likes the irony

Rather than Bentley’s Sand Over Sable, John has gone for Moss Over Leaf

Nearly ready

The chimney has a good view

It works!

There’s no smoke…

July - the young ones

First a further note re the trail camera videos. If you read the blog posts in the monthly email you receive, it is unlikely you will be able to see video footage as most email networks omit this since it takes up too much space. If you would like to watch the videos, can we suggest you use the email as a prompt to catch up with the blog on the Liddells website: www.liddells.co.uk This month the footage from 27th and 28th is particularly endearing.

4th July

Thanks to Hal and Beth and their social bubble, Clare and John were able to host a mini Forest School session. Six families arrived with enthusiasm and picnics. Hal and Juno acted as chief guides. Clare had left individual pots of honey in the dead letter box for each of the children, which, according to Hal, ‘went down a storm’. Even the child who professed he didn’t like honey proclaimed it delicious. Elora decided to set off on a hunt and found a Gruffalo house. Juno demonstrated her learning and did her best to instil quiet in the hide, however excited chatter won out. A good day was had by all.

The Gruffalo was out when they called

A keen group of pond dippers

Early stages of ornithology

6th July

Juno had another investigative day at Liddells.

Small Tortoiseshell under scrutiny

Baby newts from the big pond. They are too small to tell at this stage whether they are Smooth, Great Crested or Palmate

Juno absorbed by something in her hand. History does not relate what it was however it was clearly interesting

7th July

Mel completed his monthly wildflower survey (see the Surveys page of the website) and is confident that not only are there more flowers present on Liddells than when he first surveyed the flora in 2014, but there are more species in evidence. John and Clare are much encouraged by this.

8th - 15th July

Further evidence of newt presence. John helpfully turned this adult newt over so that you can clearly see the bright orange underside with black blotches which identifies this as a Great Crested Newt.

Topside

Underside

Clare has been looking for different species of insect on flowering plants. Some are proving hard to identify.

This may be a Soldier Beetle and it may not

Possibly Heath bumblebee smothered in pollen on Spear Thistle

Red-tailed bumble bee on Spear Thistle

This is possibly one of the 4000 British beetle species. Clare will try and narrow this identification down

This shot is included simply to use John’s caption - Two bees or not two bees

Extra pollinator food - the roses in the hedge by the bee hives have come into flower for the first year

Is it a bee (4000 UK species),or is s it a wasp (9000 UK species)? Clare continues to work her way through identification guides

Whatever it is, it’s on Sneezewort, this much Clare knows

Let’s not forget the Common Wasp, Vespula Vulgaris, on Hogweed here. At least it’s identifiable

Let’s not forget the Common Wasp, Vespula Vulgaris, on Hogweed here. At least it’s identifiable

Common Red Soldier Beetles doing what they have to do a lot because they have such a short life; this activity has led to their other name - Hogweed Bonking Beetle

On the 12th Juno introduced yet another of her friends to Liddells and is clearly supremely confident now in the art of marshmallow toasting, leaving Hal to initiate Mia.

15th and 19th July

The wildlife on Liddells seems to have been secretly watching and learning from Juno’s stump jumping games. Unless the camera has captured early signs of a pending election with candidates choosing suitable sites for their stump speech. The doe seems to be shaking her head at the idea. John and Clare’s money is on a Parliament of Owls.

While digging out pondweed, Clare spotted a Great Diving Beetle, a ‘large and voracious predator’, in the roadside pond, which obligingly stayed near the surface long enough for John to take a photograph. Clare also saw a creature she didn’t recognise and called on Keith (HWKNEAN) for help. The next day Clare witnessed the GDB driving the creature round in circles before eating it. Keith guessed that when alive it had been an unusually pale Notonecta glauca in its flying phase. After some pond dipping, John was able to photograph another of these backswimmers that has, thus far, survived.

The culprit…

…the victim…

…and the escapee

This female Ruddy Darter stopped darting for long enough for a photograph

As did this Small Skipper - you can see how it it is holding it’s forewings half open, typical of Skippers. Clare thinks it resembles an origami creation

19th - 26th July

Alongside all of this observation, John, Clare and Mel have been continuing with Liddells Routine Maintenance. John has felled a couple of trees and done some high pruning in the Top Strip, strimmed paths in the Scrub and Pit Wood and done some clearing in the North-East Strip; Clare has attacked the weeds in the Top Strip path, sickled the growth either side of the path and cut the flowering heads of the Hogweed, which has been slowly taking over; Mel has tackled the Mint on the Meadow which has threatened a land grab. Clare has also set about her annual Yellow Rattle seed collecting - this year the seeds are going to friends with land near Sandhoe, Hallbankgate and Codlaw as well as going back onto Liddells at the west end of the Top Grazing and round the Shepherd’s Hut.

Clare called on Bee Buddy Barry’s help to go through her hives again and managed to do so this time without being stung. There are two strong colonies and a third that is building more slowly. The fourth, as suspected, had a queen that had not mated successfully, so Clare has added a frame of eggs from one of the thriving hives and left it in purdah for a month in the hope there will be time enough for the bees to make another queen and for her to mate and start building a colony.

John has manufactured the most splendid pond rake and he and Clare are slowly extracting some of the algae that has built up in the two larger ponds. The rake is proving its worth and the water quality in both ponds seems already much improved. Clare is using the shorter pond dipping net to skim off some of the surface algae, and finding more creatures in the process. As well as innumerable young newts, she found an, as yet, unidentified insect. Froglets are also emerging, though thus far too quickly to be photographed. John and Clare have added plants to the roadside pond (last year’s plants were compromised by the digger activity in the autumn and plants ordered earlier this year got caught up in lockdown so were not in the best state when they arrived). Clare and John have realised they need many, many more plants than they had ordered for the size of the ponds - more to add to the learning curve as well as to the ponds.

Angle iron head with tines of long bolts

On the 19th John noticed a flower in the Scrub that he hadn’t seen before. Clare thought it was a Nettle-leaved Bellflower and asked Mel for confirmation. Apparently Mel was doubtful as it is unusual to find the plant north of the Humber, however on close examination he agreed with Clare. Clare has sent Mel to look at what she thinks are more of the same plant about half a mile from home, although they might be Giant Bellflower, which is more commonly found locally.

Campanula trachelium

Clare and John received an offer they chose not to refuse - a local Longhorn Cattle breeder offered them beef for haylage. Tom, who has cut the Wildflower Meadow in the past, arrived on 21st and cut the Top Grazing, although Clare and John decided to keep the area round the new tree planting and a section at the west end uncut to preserve forage for pollinators. The next day it rained however Tom was able to return and do the rowing up ready for local farmer Barry to bale and wrap on 25th.

Cutting

On 24th Tim was pleased to see more butterflies than recently on his weekly transect survey, particularly as these included Common Blue and Small Copper on the Meadow. He and Mel have both encountered the Tawny Owl on their walks round Liddells - presumably the owl is canvassing.

Common Blue (topside) on Fleabane …

…and underside

Small Copper on Greater Knapweed

Meanwhile at the hide…

…juveniles are using the feeders and emptying them daily.

Seeing red

In the pink

Goldfinch not yet red in the face

This juvenile Blue Tit has yet to learn that toe-nail picking in public is to be discouraged

Coal Tit buffing up

The RSPB bird guide says that the juvenile Siskin resembles a ‘greyer washed-out female’. Clare thinks this is a rather sexist comment. The Chaffinch is saying nothing.

Nuthatch colouring up

While on the Top Grazing…

Of course hay bales are not only good for fodder…

The approach…

…the preparation…

27th July

John and Clare were delighted to see this footage on the trail camera.

John thinks that the mother is the doe kid seen on Liddells last year - young mothers usually only have one kid rather than twins. John also thinks she has had her kid late in the season. As you will see in the following clips, the buck is showing interest in her (it is the time of the rut) while the doe doesn’t yet seem receptive. When the buck appears, the kid gets quickly out of the way.

June - out of gear

1st June

Disaster has struck, the strimmer gear box has broken and needs replacing. Fortunately the service centre reopened in Hexham today so John could take the wounded machinery straight down; unfortunately there are seventy jobs in the queue before this one. A turn in the weather is bringing lots of rain and the paths will grow furiously. John is furious.

2nd June

John has painted the tiles for the woodburner stand in the shepherd’s hut. The blackbirds in the shed nest have hatched and are hungry.

3rd June

Mel set about the June Wildflower survey and discovered that there are different Avens in the Pit Wood - Water and Wood Avens have hybridised. You can read his report here or on the Surveys page.

Wooter Avens? Watood Avens? Unseasoned Avens?

6th June

The trail camera has captured footage of a doe in the Pit Wood. John says she looks like a youngster - her legs are quite spindly and her neck is very thin. She is possibly the one that was raised on Liddells last year.

7th June

John is channelling his strimmer frustration into more camera action. The trail camera is capturing much blackbird foraging in the Pit Wood and some competition.

“I smell a rat”

“I smell a Chaffinch”

Acrobatic Siskin

“I told him not to show off”

Juvenile Woodpecker (rusty red patch on the top of the head) learning to play Hide and Seek

16th June

The bad weather has eased and Juno visited Liddells again for pond-dipping, Foxglove fittings and gate-climbing.

Water Boatman

This is a newt larva. It is very hard to determine at this stage of development whether it is of a Palmate or Great Crested Newt. John discovered a source of information in the Amphibian and Reptile Groups website

They fit!

Learning to climb at the hinge end of the gate

With an easing in lockdown rules, Kathryn, who leads Tynedale Community Choir, suggested that a Tiny Choir might meet and sing together at an appropriate distance. Clare offered Liddells for this experiment and six singers enjoyed reconnecting to the experience of singing with each other at the Point of View rather than on Zoom. Photos from Jane B and Clare.

17th June

The weather confounded the forecast and Tim was able to conduct a butterfly transect. Butterflies have been notable for their absence over the last two weeks or more so it was good to hear that Tim had seen ‘not many butterflies but a few less common ones’ - a Small Copper, a Small Heath and two Large Skippers. This is his photo of a Large Skipper on a Marsh Thistle.

Clare also grabbed the chance to have a look at the bees. One nucleus colony was full to bursting so she moved it into a full size brood box; the other nucleus has an older queen and was not so full and needed stores; Clare then looked in one of the hives that has been in purdah and discovered three frames of capped brood which indicates that a new queen has emerged and successfully mated. Clare did not spend time looking for the queen since she might still be a bit flighty. After disrobing Clare had a look back at the apiary and noticed that the brood box she had put in place was not properly on its supports and was leaning; she also realised that rather than feeding syrup to the hungry colony, she could take a frame of ready-to-eat stores from the hive with plenty of stores. Clare put her bee suit back on and then made A Bad Mistake. She thought that as these would be fairly quick procedures, she wouldn’t bother putting her wellies back on but would tuck her bee suit trousers into her walking socks and boots. The tilted hive was easily remedied, however having only recently been disturbed, taking a frame of food from the other hive evoked a mass protest, round about ankle height. Clare has understood and now feels, the error of her ways. Wellies from now on.

21st- 28th June

John has discovered that the strimmer is no longer the seventy-first job in line at the repair shop, because the new gear box has to be shipped from Sweden and may take Some Time. Meanwhile Clare has taken her sickle to some of the paths to help keep them nettle and thistle free. She is getting into the swing of things. Clare also looked at the last of her hives this week, only to have her fears confirmed that the new queen will have become ready for mating in the recent cold, wet weather and has clearly not been able to mate successfully and start laying. The bees might raise another queen from eggs taken from another hive.

The trail camera has captured a roe deer, a doe, apparently rubbing a sapling. John is puzzled by this behaviour since it doesn’t seem to fit any known pattern. John will investigate further - watch this Blog space. At the end of the clip the deer jumps. John thinks it might have seen a squirrel. The next clip is of a squirrel jumping…

John spotted a very large Tawny Owl pellet (80 cmm long, 30 mm diameter at its widest; Tawny owl pellets are usually greyer and more obviously ‘furry’ than those of the barn owl. They are medium sized pellets (20-50 mm long) with a bumpy surface. The shape is long and narrow, but irregular and they tend to taper at one end.) on the top of the Dirty Dancing Bridge - Clare can not recall similar behaviour on the part of either Johnny or Baby. Still she’s enjoying imagining a Tawny Owl spreading its wings as it remembers that ‘the most important thing is balance’. Clare has decided that another owl pellet dissection is unnecessary.

John has been photographing more juveniles from the hide.

Robin - black eye, mottled brown body. This one is too young to be showing the red blotches which will start to appear soon

Dunnock - brown eye, uneven grey and brown streaking below, line of pale spots across wings (hidden by the twig, readers will have to take John’s word for it)

John was talking to a local historian who told him a tale about a ghost rider who appears on misty mornings in November. She is a young woman on a runaway white horse, travelling east from Liddells in the direction of Doctor’s Wood. If readers wish to visit the area on such a morning, John and Clare wish it to be known that ghost-hunters do this at their own risk.

29th June

Just as John had decided to hire a strimmer (Clare wonders if there is a Strimmaholics Anonymous group he might be persuaded to join), John called in at the repair shop only to discover his very own strimmer, resplendent with a new gear box, was ready for collection and immediate use. Clare thinks John had been subjected to the air sucked in through the teeth/head shaking in doubt/slight amusement that anyone could imagine a job could be done quickly/”It’s not going to cheap”/eyes raised to the heavens response, and fell for it. The upshot is paths were strimmed today and will be tomorrow and probably several days after that.

May - surveying the situation

1st-2nd May

On 1st May John continued clearing in the Pit Wood, felling a couple of trees that were compromising the growth of ones next to them, and brashing/path-making. The next day Clare and John had a bonfire to burn all the brash from this work and from when John and Robbie had felled over a dozen trees in the area a few years ago. It was a mighty bonfire. All the clearing revealed a readymade seat from which to watch the conflagration. During the clearing John saw several deer slots in the area so left the trail camera to see what it might capture. He was pleased to know there are still deer around however he has clearly misremembered their size.

First the work…

…then the fire…

…then the relaxation

There’s no smoke…

3rd May

Clare’s choir has a tradition of singing in the sunrise from the bandstand in Hexham on the first Monday May Bank Holiday, followed by a shared breakfast. Last year Clare offered a post-breakfast walk round Liddells to listen to the birds. In the absence of that event this year, Clare decided to join in with International Dawn Chorus Day on May 3rd and to make some recordings of the birdsong on Liddells to share with the choir. Dawn that day was at 4.40. As Clare left the house she heard antelucan (OED Word of the Day 5th May: Of, belonging to, or occurring in the hours just before dawn) birdsong from a Blackbird and Thrush in the surrounding trees. Here are a couple of the four videos. You will see how it gets lighter during her walk. The first video opens with a Garden Warbler singing. The second ends with a Lapwing and Curlew calling from the neighbouring farmland as Clare went back to her car. In total she heard and/or saw twenty-five different species (not all are represented in these two clips). Here they are in the order you would find them in a bird book:

Greylag Goose, Buzzard, Pheasant, Lapwing, Curlew, Woodpigeon, Tawny Owl (possibly), Dunnock, Robin, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Garden Warbler, Blackcap, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Goldcrest, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Marsh Tit, Magpie, Rook, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Yellowhammer.

After the walk, Clare was able to warm herself by the remains of the bonfire. Tim took a photograph of one of the Snake’s Head Fritillaries on the Meadow and John captured this image of new Spring life.

4th-5th May

Clare and John put edging round the membrane of the third Willow screen and removed the camouflage netting from the meadow fence and the protective tubes from the hedging in front of the hives. The growth is now sufficient to screen the hives and shed from the road. Mel moved barrowloads of chip from the North-east Strip and added it to the Willow screen so all that remains is to build the seat.

Edged

Hedged

Fetched

Clare and John have been perplexed by noticing that on more than one occasion the letters making up Juno’s name on her dead letter box in the hide have been removed and some have vanished. They set up the trail camera to see if it would shed any light on the mystery. The hare seems to be innocent however several clips showed squirrels enjoying the hide’s facilities so Clare and John can only conclude that they are out in the wood playing Bananagrams. At least Liddells has literate squirrels.

7th May

An unusual butterfly was seen flying over the Top Grazing; thus far Tim has been unable to make an identification. Juno practised tree-hugging and tree-climbing. The cleared area in the Pit Wood enabled games of Stump-jumping and Musical Stumps. Clare discovered that a Blackbird had built a nest next to one of the RSPB Swallow nest cups in the old pony shelter.

Agreed best caption - Twig of the Stump

Cup and saucer

8-15th May

Mel has sent the first of his monthly wildflower surveys which is available on the Surveys page of the website. He saw a Short-tailed Field Vole near the hide. He has also been working on eradicating some of the Mint that has taken over in the wet patch on the Meadow. Clare embarked on her annual Thistle Eradication Programme - total so far 735. John continues to collect images of the birds round the hide. One image might reveal why the Blue Tits have abandoned the nest box nearby.

Female Great Spotted Woodpecker

Male Great Spotted Woodpecker

Ruffled Jay

14th May

Dave G came to help John with the strimming and they made paths through the Orchard and into the Pit Wood.

16th May

Clare chose Building a Fire Pit as Juno’s activity for the day. Juno was first tasked with ‘woolgathering’ - one of the words from Uncommon Ground by Dominick Tyler. ‘When children were sent out to gather the snagged tufts of wool left by sheep in hedges and on fence posts it’s fair to assume the task, which provides the opportunity for aimless wandering, wasn’t always approached with the focussed attention that parents might have wanted. Hence ‘woolgathering’ became synonymous with absent-minded daydreaming and generally letting one’s mind wander from the matter in hand.’ Tyler believed that the children would have given the bits of wool a name, however he didn’t have any luck finding any words so speculated that they might be called ‘cotymogs’ (a derivation from the Welsh ‘cotwym’ meaning ‘having dags or locks’).

NB Clare wrote up this episode on Wednesday 27th May. That evening, in an extraordinarily synchronous way, the BBC programme The Repair Shop (if you don’t know it, have a watch) featured a spinning wheel from Shetland that needed restoration. The woman who had inherited the wheel spoke of how she and her sister were sent out woolgathering for their Auntie Annie, the spinner, and she then said that in Shetland, the bits of wool were called ‘hentilagets’. Dominck Tyler take note!

Juno and family gathered other kindling and wood for fuel, and marshmallows were toasted.

Woolgathering

Digging the pit

Watching the blaze or maybe woolgathering

Making sure the chef does a good job

She awarded it *****

17th - 24th May

The lino floor in the shepherd’s hut seemed to have stretched over the winter. John has cut it down to size and it looks a better fit and much chastened. John then set about cutting the tiles for the woodburner surround, using his birthday angle grinder. He has formed a perfect relationship with this new tool and says he is in love with it.

Keith was inducted into the art of bumble bee surveying today and did his first transect. We look forward to hearing his reports. Clare had discovered that the nesting box which is visible from the hide has been taken over by a bumble bee however she is not sure which species. On his way past the ponds Keith saw a Large Red Damselfly.

John did more work on the tiles; Clare suspects this was because he wanted to use his angle grinder again. She dug some of the pondweed out of one of the ponds that has dried out.

Clare found that wasps have been nest-building in one of the sheds. They seem to have done this as a teaching aid to demonstrate the stages of construction. Her discovery was on the day the OED Word of the Day was simplex munditiis. (Elegantly simple; unostentatiously beautiful.) Exactly.

Clare has been checking her bees for signs of imminent swarming. Both colonies have produced queen/swarm cells so Clare has stepped in to create artificial swarms by removing the queens and some of the house-bees (the ones too young to go out foraging) and putting them with some stores and a frame with eggs and brood, into a nucleus hive. This leaves the remaining bees with the queen cell; the cell should produce a queen who will emerge, mature and mate, ready to start a new colony. Unfortunately the bees do not always read the same textbooks as beekeepers.

Dave G came to help with more strimming, clearing more of the paths through the Pit Wood.

Stages 1, 2 and 3

Stage 1

Stage 3

25th May

Keith had offered to help with an annual breeding bird survey again. He and Clare went round early morning to listen for singing males as well as spot birds whenever possible. Given the number of Titmice round the hide, very few made their presence felt, however Keith and Clare heard and/or saw 22 species. You can read the full results on the Surveys page. Keith took the two photographs of warblers.

As Keith and Clare were getting close to the hives, there were many, many buzzing bees in the air over one of the hives; this is what bees do when they are about to swarm. The likely explanation is that the new queen had emerged and matured, just as the textbooks say, and then she had skipped the bit about going off for her mating flights and returning to found a new colony, and had gone straight to the trouble-shooting pages which describe virgin queens leaving with a swarm. So much for so-called swarm control. Fortunately the bees usually leave a queen cell behind when they do this, so another colony should develop. Clare is holding her breath while she waits to see if the second colony have read the books or have a different one, clearly been written by a bee, with the express purpose of dispelling any illusion bee-keepers might have that they are in control.

Garden Warbler in full song

Willow Warbler pausing mid-song

26th - 30th May

John and Clare completed the last of the month’s nesting box surveys. The results are on the Surveys page. You will read that John and Clare were concerned that they might have caused too much disturbance by inspecting the boxes weekly, however John has found on the BTO website that weekly inspections are advised throughout the year, so there may be a different cause for the two abandoned broods on Liddells.

The Roe buck has appeared in the Scrub. John says the final frame of the video shows a well-balanced three-pointed right antler with brow, top and rear points, however the left antler is less well-developed with only a rudimentary brow point and no significant branching. This imbalance may be due to damage sustained while fraying or fighting, or simply a genetic factor. Next year he may grow a completely differently shaped set of antlers. John hopes readers of the Blog appreciate their developing knowledge of the Roe.

The trail camera has revealed a new mammal on Liddells. People have often asked whether there are hedgehogs on site - the answer is now, “Yes”.

John, relieved that the tiling in the shepherd’s hut is largely finished, has taken his camera to the ponds.

All that remains is to paint the tiles to match the stove

Tadpole consuming a meal

Tadpole digesting

Identification unclear - this is either a dragonfly or damselfly larva

Large Red Damselfly (male)

Common Blue Damselfly (male)

Broad-bodied Chaser (female)

31st May

The last visit of the month. John took several photos of a Linnet perching on gorse and of a Swallow on the shed roof, before realising he had forgotten to replace the disc in his camera. He swallowed hard. Happily the Swallow returned and settled even closer on the fencing rail. John hopes the Linnets will pose again next month.