Because of the wet autumn and winter, I’ve only just cut the long shoots off our Golden Hornet crab apple. Recycling some twine from a wigwam that I’d made for climbing plants last year, I’ve tied them into bundles to create a habitat which I’m hoping might attract solitary bees, beetles or other invertebrates.
I would have done the same if I’d got around to cutting back the long shoots on the rowan in the front garden too but a pair of blue tits are showing a lot of interest in the nestbox there, so I’ll leave that job until the autumn.
We cut the Joan Jay autumn-fruiting raspberry canes down to 18 inches last autumn and now in spring they can be cut right down to two or three inches, as they flower on new growth. I’ve cut them in half to produce a couple of bundles, one of which I’ve inserted into a cavity between the rocks at the edge of the raised bed.
Last year was our best ever for the two small cordon apples by the patio but this year out of the few small apples that grew, all were blemished by insects or pecked by birds.
We grow a double cordon of Howgate Wonder and a single stem of Golden Spire. They’re in a tiny bed close to the wall of next door’s conservatory so in September I added a thick mulch of garden compost to refresh the soil. I also planted dozens of crocus bulbs.
This female garden spider, Araneus diadematus, has spun her orb web in the greenhouse. The pattern on its abdomen gives it the alternative names of cross spider or diadem spider.
The herald moth, Scoliopteryx libatrix, feeds after dark on flowers and overripe berries, which probably explains why this one is hiding amongst our raspberry canes. Its larvae feed on willows, aspen and poplars.
I’m aware that what to me seems like a neglected corner is home to some of the creatures that I try to encourage in our garden. As I clear the chicory from the mint bed, I disturb a common frog.
Garden snail
The frog is outnumbered by slugs and snails, spiders and harvestmen.
My next task is to clear my little meadow area which is overrun with chicory. I want to make a fresh start and sow a cornfield mix to flower next spring and summer. I’ll clear it again at the end of the season in attempt to discourage the chicory.
After a record-breaking late summer bank holiday with temperatures of 28C in Leeds, we had a downpour yesterday evening. The paving sand that I’d swept into the cracks a couple of days ago has been washed out in places by the overspill from our driveway. The dished concrete channel in front of the garage door can’t cope with the run-off from a rainstorm.
It’s been a good test for a small area. I’ll buy a small bag of cement and make a dry mix – three of sand to one of cement – with the remaining sand to brush into the crevices on the sloping driveway.
Wadi Rum
The swirling shapes of my little patches of washed-out sand remind me of the run-off deposits that are left by flash floods in wadis, as in this Google Earth image from the Wadi Rum Protected Area, Jordan.
Yesterday, after taking out a few weeds, I swept sand into the cracks between the paving slabs by the front door. Already this morning, there are signs of activity. Could these be tracks left by an insect? Or a woodlouse?
Something has been active in the corner. I didn’t notice this tiny snail shell until I spotted in the photograph. It might have been dislodged from a crevice yesterday but I suspect that it’s been introduced along with the sand.
The sand is from Denmark. The grains are small, mostly less than a millimetre, and well-rounded, so perhaps this is windblown sand from a former dune system. Denmark has extensive dunes along its western, North Sea, coast and, further inland, extensive areas of glacial sand and gravel.
In my photograph, the glassy grains are quartz and I think that the larger, fleshy-looking ochre fragments are feldspar.
Danish sand: Dansand No Grow Block Paving Sand
Doorstep Bio-blitz
Garden snail
The seven species that I disturbed as I weeded around the paving stones yesterday come from seven different families, four classes and three phyla, so, within inches of our front door, we have an annelid worm, a gastropod mollusc, an isopod crustacean and a social insect.
I disturbed a large ant as I swept the driveway, which I guessed was a queen. The queen disposes of her wings after her nuptial flight, then sets about finding a suitable site – such as here under the paving stones – to start her colony.
Coincidentally, later, a few yards away, I spotted a worker ant carrying a single transparent wing, which looked like one that had been discarded by a queen.
We’ve had record temperatures for a late bank holiday so, again, I’ve been working in the shade at the front of the house, weeding the cracks between the paving slabs before cleaning up with the masonry brush and sweeping sand into the gaps with a soft brush.
I didn’t use the hand cultivator today, but it was more appealing to draw than the plastic-handled weeder that I had been using.
As I worked around the front door, I was surprised by the variety of life on our doorstep: a garden snail, woodlice, ants, small earthworms, a tiny rove beetle and one green shield bug nymph. The nymph looks like a smaller version of the adult but it lacks wings. This one had to laboriously walk over towards the cover of the hosta to escape my brushwork.
Procreate drawing
One again this is a Procreate iPad drawing and today I used just two of the available tools: the Gesinski Pen and the Round Brush.
If I’d been painting on paper, I would have used opaque gouache to add the light-coloured bristles against the darker background. This time I added them with Gesinski Pen with a 100% opaque light colour.
I was determined not to use an eraser but when I was finishing the drawing, I realised that a false start that I’d made with one of the prongs of the cultivator was throwing the whole drawing out of proportion. I opted for ‘painting’ over it in white, to produce a similar effect to when I used to correct illustrations with a dab of white gouache. The correction is intended to remain visible.
Stripy brown-lipped snails hunker down on ivy leaves in our hedges. I find them even when I’m up the steps, cutting back the top branches.
We’re continuing to harvest plenty of produce from the veg beds – courgettes, potatoes, spinach, rhubarb and autumn raspberries – but we’re taking a break from beans: the french and broad beans are over but the runners, which have masses of scarlet flowers, are taking their time to burst into full flow.
One or two holly blues have been visiting the ivy, which, along with the holly, is one of the food plants of the caterpillar.
Drawing on one layer in Procreate
My drawing was made in the Procreate drawing program on my iPad Pro. For a change, I’ve drawn it all on one layer. I usually keep pencil roughs, ink and colour on separate layers, which keeps the line work unblemished but that means that I’m missing out on all the efforts that the Procreate designers have put into making digital drawing feel like its real world equivalent. In this case, I don’t mind if the pen and ink gets slightly blurred as I add the colour.
One morning last week, after a wild and windy night, we found this nest, which I think was made by goldfinches, on the lawn at the foot of the rowan in the front garden. It’s just three inches (8 cm) across and very light. There were no signs of eggs or chicks in or around it, so I think that it had been dislodged by the wind, rather than raided by a predator, such as a magpie or cat.
It’s composed mainly of frizzy wool-like material, which might be dog hair, wool or even some manmade down. It is too long and curly to be thistle down. The nest is decorated with strands of moss around the outside with a few long threads curled around the inside of the cup, which are possibly horse hair but more likely textile thread. As I went out to measure it just now, a week after it fell, I noticed a tiny rove beetle amongst the fibres in the centre of the cup.
A month or more ago, a goldfinch was singing from the telephone cables near the rowan tree and sometimes there would be a pair of them perching there, so I wondered if they had a nest nearby.
It’s been a good year for goldfinches and garden birds in general, with young bullfinches, chaffinches, blackbirds, starlings, blue tits and great tits coming to our back garden bird feeders, but goldfinches are the most numerous. Yesterday a flock – a charm to use the collective noun – of goldfinches flew up from feeding on the fluffy seed-heads of creeping thistle in the meadow by the wood.
Even by boosting the contrast, I can’t really pick out any definite tracks at the entrance to my animal tracking tunnel, which has now been sitting amongst the long grass by the hedge at the end of the garden for two days. The damp paper along the edges might have been nibbled by slugs.
As I moved in to take a close-up photograph, a vole ran out from the tunnel. It happened so quickly that I wondered if it really had been in there or whether it had been hidden in the grass at my feet but when I slid out the bait tray I could see that half the sunflower hearts had disappeared.
One of the sunflower hearts had been nibbled at one end to expose the seed inside.
In the milk bottle top that serves as a bowl for the bait something has been nibbling away at what I think might be fragments of peanuts in the peanut butter. Traces of slime suggest that slugs or snails have been visiting the tunnel.
I’ve topped up the bait with sunflower hearts, so my tracking tunnel has now become a vole feeding station.
