April 2022 has been, to date, THE best hedgehog watching via the garden cameras in all my time blogging! What a very special gardenwatching month this has been. Eleven videos in one blog post does seem a bit excessive but it was really hard knocking footage down to even that! As the hedgehog is a… Read More April hedgehog visitors & videos
2022 saw our earliest frog spawning to date here in Perthshire, Scotland. It arrived unexpectedly on 15th March just as the opportunity of bright, warmer days made for a bit of a garden tidy. Clearing leaves and thinning out pond plants was top of the list but the job was half done when the spawn… Read More Fascinating frogs, spawn and newts
Regular blog posts haven’t been forthcoming this past while, but I can’t miss stopping by to acknowledge when this blog began, back on November 19th, 2006. A return to drawing may have taken over the creative outlet blogging has been over the years, for now, but I have seriously enjoyed all the blog post writing… Read More Gosh, 15 years!
Yesterday’s wander into the garden brought the colour back, a break from the black and white view indoors. A spot of plant rearranging in the front garden was restful on the eyes too, a break from fine detailed drawing with a fountain pen. Don’t get me wrong, despite the hours it will take, I’m loving… Read More From black and white to colour
That was something I wanted to know last week, although I didn’t know it was legs that I was seeing dangling down at the time. These insects were odd looking en masse that was for sure. It could have been a tail I was seeing, they were so fast moving, quite jerkily too. They had… Read More What are the black flying insects with long legs?
Today may be the last day of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society’s annual Hedgehog Awareness Week for 2021, but for the survival of this species our awareness needs to continue. Nature websites and social media are full of valuable information, especially from dedicated carers and rescue centres who are happy to answer questions. Reading and… Read More Hoping hedgehog awareness continues
The nature writer Jim Crumley ‘relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species’ in his series of small books, Encounters in the Wild. I have very much enjoyed these books, all gifts. I’d like to relive my weeks’ garden encounter with a fieldfare here. A rather indulgent series of images perhaps (photos, a… Read More Enjoying the company of a fieldfare
Historically, previous RSPB Big Garden Birdwatches haven’t reflected regular gardenwatch counts here. The birds appear to go into hiding. However, this year there was a risk of a cat being in hiding. Where you might not expect too, the top of a well kept leylandii hedge. Feathers still decorate the area from the last time.… Read More RSPB Birdwatch v Gardenwatch
As 2020 comes to an end, so does Adobe Flash Player. After adding two more Reolink cameras this year, it was a nervous wait for Reolink to release a firmware update so we could continue to view gardenwatch footage captured when my PC wasn’t on. There was a sigh of relief when it appeared during… Read More Flash gone, fix for Reolink cameras
An early morning stroll with a camera today revealed a few surprise blooms for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, November 2020. Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’ was one, flowering completely out of season. It is a Spring bloomer. A Lewsia growing in a greenhouse pot was another. Not a surprise today, was the out of season flowers of… Read More Soggy, surprise November blooms