First of all, a big thank you to all blog supporters. We understand that some of you come from far flung places like the USA and Cumbria. We love the idea that we are connecting with you all and hope that you feel free to invite other interested parties to follow us.
We have put a selection of our favourite photographs from this year on a new Gallery page.
1st December
DEFRA have sent us the necessary form today to complete the Sheep and Goats Annual inventory. First of course we have to find some goats, then make sure they are on the left hand, borrow the sheep back again keeping them on the right and then count. We wonder if DEFRA will accept yan, tan, tethera, pimp…. Sounds like a challenge for One Man and His God.
4th December
John reinstated the tapes that keeps the area round the bee hives clear, and then gave Paul and William access to the Scrub, Wetland and Crag. There is still plenty for them to eat here and it will mean that we can keep our hay for when/if the weather gets worse later in the winter.
You can see how this part of Liddells holds the frost as it is largely north facing
Hal has had the great good fortune to spot a Woodcock Pilot and to share his sighting with us!
10th December
We started marking out the planting sites for the Alder and Wych Elm that have arrived
There will be 3 Wych Elm in the Top Strip
3 Alders on the Wetland (if you look very closely you can see the other two tubes in the distance!
16th December
While John and Eilidh were long-reining Paul, Clare decided to tidy up the roadway edge by one of the ponds. Nothing more fun that heaving heavy stones around in the slippery mud. Mole-catcher Robert had his first success with the traps on the Meadow.
Leaving not many stones unturned
Robert with corpse and business associate Sky
You can lead a horse to water…..
17-20th December
We planted the rest of the Alder and Wych Elm, introducing 3 Alder and 4 Wych Elm to the Pit Wood.
You may have been concerned for a while at the status of your amorous gestures. Fear not, you are back in fashion.
Which Wych Elm?
Gorse coming in to flower in the Scrub
28th December
Tim has kindly produced this annual report on the butterflies on Liddells. You can also find this here where his graphs and tables are included.
Liddells Butterflies – 2018
A hot and dry summer across the country played havoc with all nature, maybe less so in the north than down south. At Liddells, the meadow turned very dry, some plants flowered early, some not at all, and some late, which is tough on the caterpillars & butterflies who have to appear at the same time as the flowers. As a few examples, Red Campion flowered late in the summer, Birdsfoot trefoil seemed to give up completely, thistles went to seed early, but then I saw one in flower in early December. I’m confused, so pity the poor butterflies, never mind Clare’s bees.
By way of comparison 1976, a hot and dry year, was a good year for butterflies, but not for their offspring. 1977 proved very disappointing, many caterpillars and eggs did not survive to the following spring, and some butterflies took many years to recover. To some extent this is just a natural cycle, butterfly numbers go up and down, but there a few concerns and next year will be interesting.
At Liddells, we had two significant positives, 23 Small Copper were seen, and a real surprise, a Purple Hairstreak on a south facing oak tree. And Large Skippers were also seen, but not on the Liddells Butterfly transect.
Sadly, for unknown reasons Small Tortoiseshells are suffering across the country, and at Liddells they and Meadow Browns are well down on the long term average.
The Small Copper did best this year
30th December
A last walk round Liddells for a while for Clare this morning. We checked on the bees and they are beginning to take the fondant feed that they have over the winter. They digest this directly rather than store it in frames. It was good to see some of the bees on the fondant (which is in upturned plastic boxes placed over holes in the crown board which covers the frames, leaving a space under the roof for feed and insulation) as Clare had neither sight nor sound of them in weeks. It’s always a leap of faith at this time of year that they are ok. We were pleased to see that there are still large numbers of Fieldfares in residence. The ponies are warm in their winter coats and looking a bit trimmer (which is no bad thing, particularly in William’s case). John is under instruction to provide blog material over the next couple of months while Clare recovers from the hip replacement op she is due to have tomorrow.
A Happy New Year to you all and a Happy Hippy one for Clare