Plants for the perfect English Garden

During the 15 years that we have lived at the nursery, we have seen a few uncommon bird species:

Lesser spotted woodpecker

Hawfinch

Waxwing

Redstart

During the spring, listen out for these plentiful species:

Blackcap

Nuthatch

Chiffchaff

There are 19 nest boxes dotted around, mostly filled with blue, great and coal tits. In early 2011, I attached a row of 5 home-made House Martin nests to the east facing gable of the house to see if we could attract this species. They had shown an interest in nesting in previous years and may not have persisted in their nest building activities because of a lack of good mud.

On 19th May, a house martin started to show interest in nest building. Instead of using one of my ready built homes, it started work on a new nest at the apex of the gables. The work continued until 2nd June. On every single day I ensured that they had mud. I lined a shallow depression with a sheet of polythene about 2 x 2 metres and filled it so with 2 inches of water so that half the area was water and the other half mud. The mud was only heaped about 25mm above the water level. In the hot weather, it would almost dry out by the end of the day. I used soil with a fairly high clay content to ensure that it was sticky enough to hold together. The nest building was successful and the house martins raised a small family which fledged on 27th July.

We feed the birds regularly and you can see Goldfinches in the trees awaiting their turn to feed on nyger seed. Visits by nuthatches to black sunflower seed have vastly reduced now that there is plenty of natural food available as the weather has warmed up. Greenfinches have returned after being largely absent in the winter and I have found one nest on the nursery. House sparrows are found occasionally and have failed to nest despite my provision of custom built accommodation. On sunny days, it is well worthwhile glancing upwards to look for raptors. Sparrowhawk and kestrel are fairly common, common buzzard increasingly so and there are occasional marsh harriers. And then there are those unidentified and distant ones!

Highlights of 2011

We were part time hosts to a flock of waxwings. First sighting was of 4 birds, then up to 78 and finally just 6 hung on into May. The Walled Garden was attractive to them as we have a supply of ivy berries and more important still, water. There is a wildlife pond, shallow enough in places for bathing and also several bird-baths which proved very popular. During this very dry spring, all the local puddles which they might have used has dried up. Their departure coincided with a change of weather. Strong easterlies gave way to milder westerlies which enabled them to cross the north sea and back to Scandanavia and Russia. Later in May we were visited by a red kite, a bird still scarce in Suffolk. This circled lower and lower, almost landing by the pond but at the last minute took off and was seen near Little Gllemham half an hour later.