If You Plant It, They Will Come.

Hello Friends!

Thank you everyone for your kind wishes yesterday, and lovely comments for my birthday. Also, thank you to those who sent cards and phoned me. And if you sent chocolate even better, it was most appreciated!

I guess I'm playing with words from the film Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. Well, if you plant it, hopefully they will come. What are they? Why goldfinches, of course!  I planted, and come they did!

Teasles are a favourite food of goldfinches. And if you have teasels in your garden, you will pretty much be guaranteed to see goldfinches feeding, especially during autumn and winter. 

Back in the spring, one day my phone rang, and it was my friend Briget. Did I want some teasel plants? Did I ever? Yes please!!!  I'd no sooner hung up the phone and she was knocking on my door with beautiful teasel plants. She was kind enough to even dig them in for me because I couldn't dig the holes.

Here they are after a few weeks, the elongated pointy leaf plants on the left.

Over the summer months, I had to water them to get them settled in but they established quickly and they grew well. The only problem was with the sturdy winds that blew throughout the summer they tended.to keep lying down and having a rest.  I suppose I should have staked them.  I will know for next year.

The Mulleins also did well, they attract the Mullein moth and are one of my favourite garden plants.  I let this border grow wild, unweeded.

Unfortunately, beautiful though it be, the Mullein moth caterpillar has a voracious appetite and pretty soon the stalks of the Mullein are stripped bare, almost overnight!  They don't look very pretty, but I tolerate this leaflessness in order to encourage a healthy army of caterpillars.  The caterpillars get big!  I do my bit to help them along.

Despite the caterpillars stripping the stalks of the plant bare, they still managed to flower, so seeds will set plants for future years.  The cycle will repeat and Mullein moths will hopefully thrive!

Let's return to the goldfinches.  The teasles grew and flowered and seedheads formed.

They make me think of headbanded women working out to Flashdance in the early '80's when aerobic classes were a thing.

Then one joyful day, I looked out into the garden, and this is the sight that I saw.  Beautiful goldfinches feeding on the seed heads

Here's a couple of some feeding on some other seed heads that got left behind in the border.

While I'm fine with people feeding the birds, I look upon bird feeders as a supplementary food source.  Birds need to continue foraging, which is their natural way of finding food.  If they become too dependent on bird feeders, they lose the ability to forage then when we stop putting the feeders out, they can starve. This is why it is vital for us not to keep our garden borders too well manicured and try to grow native wildflowers. for natural bird feed. 

One of my lovely birthday gifts yesterday was this thoughtful mini art prints and holder set from Mary's House Designs

Which came with a packet of wildflower seeds that I will scatter next year.

The wildflower design my friend chose was Daisies and Forget Me Nots, the latter being the symbol of the Alzheimer's society, a cause very near and dear to my heart.

copied from Mary's online shop

Included in this set is a 5g packet of wildflower seeds; these seeds are specifically chosen to attract bees, butterflies and other insects. The BSBP 100% Bees & Butterfly Wildflower Seed mix is designed to provide maximum pollen and nectar and creates a beautiful meadow and wildlife habitat.

• Contains 24 species from the RHS "Perfect For Pollinators" list.

• Also includes borage and sainfoin to encourage a wide range of pollinating insects.

• Inclusion of annuals species provides colour in the first year, plus yellow rattle.

• Perfect for creating a long lasting meadow and wildlife habitat.

So I planted teasles and they came. Now, every afternoon, around 3:15. in they swoop, my little Charm of Goldfinches.  Next year, thanks to my gift, the variety of plants and birds will be even greater. 

Until next time

Stay safe. Stay well.

Debbie xx

p.s. Editing to add that teasels are so called because in the dried heads of the plant were once used in the textile industry to raise the nap on woolen cloth, or to tease the nap.

If You Build It ~ They Will Come

Hello Friends!

The wind blows; the wind slows
The rain slices sideways in sudden, sharp downpours
Hailstones pummel and sleet slushes

We had so much rain in the last forty eight hours that when I stepped out on my lawn yesterday evening it was like walking across a wet sponge that slyrruped and slurped, squelching away under my feet ~~~

Much of the rest of Britain has had snow. We won't talk about that, other than to emphasise we didn't!

Last year, you may remember, I had to have a bad apple tree removed. Sadly, it was the apple tree where I used to hang my bird feeders. It was a grand spot, for I could sit in my comfy arm chair, warm and toasty by the fireside, with my hot drink of tea and slice of cake, watching the birds flutter in to feed on seeds and peanuts and fatty, nourishing foods to help them through the lean winter months ahead. 

I have missed watching the birds feed, so my only option was to get a feeding station to place on the lawn.  Of course, I could hang them in the remaining apple tree, but I cannot see it from the window. So, I bought one ~ "easy self assembly" and "no tools required" on the box, it said. An hour and a half later "You're having a laugh!" I said, for it might just as well have come from Ikea!  No instructions, no labelling of parts, two very fiddly stuck screws that needed a pliers to dislodge them, and all the while I'm handling cold metal with bare hands on a chilly sub 40 degrees Winter day in the garden!

Eventually, I got there. Wherever 'there' is.

However, it was only after expending all my unused energy in pushing, shoving, and hammering the spikes into the ground and coming back indoors I discovered, shock and utter horror, it is about three feet to the left of where I wanted it. Piffle.  There it will remain. I will have to either move my chair or sit forward to view the birds feeding, for I am through wrestling with it!

I filled the feeders {which are not the best quality, so good quality metal feeders are next on the shopping list} and that's when I found out that my diminutive stature of not quite five feet, three and three quarters inches about one inch shorter than the height I need to be in order to hang the feeders on the hooks without the use of a stool! Piffle.

Can this get any more desperate?

Well, yes. Of course it can. I wouldn't have asked otherwise, would I?

I have two big bags of Black Niger seed and Sunflower hearts, both of which pour straight out of the bottom of the feeders which are not at all suitable for them. Piffle again.

Defeat loomed on the grey horizon ~~~

I fished out an old stool, carefully climbed up and hung the feeders, filled the water bowl, and tipped suet into the seed dish.  This I managed without incident. The way this saga is unfolding, spilling the cold water all over me would have been the icing on the cake!

My reward was not far away, though ~~~

If you build it, they will come!

It didn't take long for the birds to come!  So, I've wittered away the afternoon watching in between chores as the birds come to discover a new feeding station in their neighbourhood!

There's a long way to go before I get all that I want set up out there, but the main thing is the birds are coming in, and I managed to get a few photographs of the happy diners, and some of the rook who wasn't happy to discover he can't get at the seeds. He became incredibly vocal ~~~

Oh, and if I am to take my photos from the comfort of my living room, I will need to wash my windows in between the window cleaner's visits! Digital photography picks up, and enhances, even the slightest speck of dust!

My favourites are the Starlings. They have such lovely markings, and while the colours are not as bright as some of the other, smaller birds, there is a sheen and delicacy to their feathers the other birds don't seem to share.

At this time, I am making a heartfelt plea to all who have read this in regard of Starlings. They are often misjudged as greedy, condemned for seeing off the other birds at the table, and for being nothing more than voracious eaters that devour everything in sight to the detriment of other birds. This is not so. For those of you who do not know, the truth is that Starlings have a very high metabolic rate and are a lot more fragile than many of the smaller birds. Starlings need about four times the amount of food, in ratio to body weight, as the small birds do, so while they appear to be greedy, they are simply eating to survive the winter months.  Please consider this next time you see Starlings eating at your feeders and don't shoosh them away, or they may die a cruel death from starvation.

Until next time ~~~
Deborah xo