Winter Wonderland
Winter wild food
Hello
I hope you have all been keeping warm during the cold snap? We’ve been fattening up on lots of cake !
An old country saying Ice in November to bear a duck, the rest of the winter’ll be slush and muck’. Not sure if this means it will warm up and rain alot, or be melting snow and mud from the thaw?
Despite it being miserable on the roads and very cold, here at the Naish farm nature reserve it has been beautiful, with ice crystals covering the trees, icicle’s dripping from the thatched roof of the farm house, and plenty of crunchy snow in the fields we’ve been in a real winter wonderland!
My gran said the last time she can remember such a frost with ice crystals covering the trees was during the war!
Our team have been spotting lots of birds taking advantage of the seeds, nuts and windfall apples.
We’ve seen a little flock of 4 bullfinches, marsh tits, field fares, woodpeckers ( green and great spotted), large flocks of starlings, dunnocks, a flock of around 20 sparrows, lots of great tits and blue tits and coal tits to name but a few.
We have recently put up another 6 nut feeders around the farm to give the birds a helping hand in the harsh weather.
We’ve also made some fat feeders by pouring meat fat into a yogurt pots with some seeds, pop in the fridge until set, push in a piece of wire with a loop in the end, then put in the freezer until set hard and the wire firmly in place, they should then slide straight out and be ready to hang up.
We really need to have a Bee green day before Christmas and start getting things ready for the spring, we have loaded the raised bed with top soil that needs to be dug in, we need to make another compost heap, dig over and fertilise the beds in the poly tunnel plant some bulbs – best get busy!
Much to our disappointment Graham and I have not yet had time to start the hedge-laying, but we will in the new year and keep you posted on our progress.
Wishing you all a wonderfully green and Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year!
Charlotte x
Winter sunrise over the nature reserve
