Fighting hedgehogs and a solution!
Fighting hedgehogs and a solution! I have had two hedgehogs feeding in my garden since spring. Both at different times and each approaching the food from a different location. I had never thought of hedgehogs fighting. Before I could film this aggression by one...
Pilkington AviSafe designed to reduce bird strikes into windows
Overview This is a new product that I had no knowledge about at all. I saw it painted on a Pilkington Glass HGV I passed on the motorway. It grabbed my attention. So I checked it out. I have had, over the years, several bird strikes onto my patio window, which have in...
Hairy yellow-face bee nesting inside Nurturing Nature nest box
Hairy yellow-face bee ( Hylaeus hyalinatus) I am assuming that this is the species! She nested inside a common yellow face bee (H. communis) nesting cavity. Looking at the BWARS site and Falk's book ( links below) along with her two 'shoulder epaulettes', I took an...
Slow worm (Anguis fragilis) a first for my wildlife garden
Slow worm (Anguis fragilis), or legless lizard. A first for my wildlife garden. Today I saw something moving on one of two steps which lead to my garden. Lo and behold it was a slow worm, a first for my wildlife garden. I could see it was trying to climb the step to...
Goldfinches, sunflower hearts and wastage
Goldfinches, sunflower hearts and wastage- what can you do? Like many people, I have been feeding sunflower hearts which attracted a lot of goldfinches to my garden. I noticed a huge increase in wastage on the ground underneath the feeder. Not only can this be...
How do you stop wood pigeons from using a bird feeder?
How do you stop wood pigeons from using a bird feeder? Wood pigeons are now commonly seen in many gardens as they bully other birds away from the food whether it's on the ground, on a table or in a bird feeder. They almost 'hoover' up wastage from the feeder that has...
Beevive a handy bottle of bumblebee ‘pick me up’
I have found queens and worker bumblebees on the ground many times knowing that all they needed was a little sugar water 'pick me up. Unfortunately, it is not something I carry around with me. Until now. This was not only a lovely idea but handy to have and nice to...
Attracting Garden Pollinators by Jean Vernon-my review
I suspect that most people when we talk about pollinators, simply think about bees, whether bumblebees, honey or solitary bees. They may not be aware that there are many other pollinators of flowers which they did not consider as pollinators. This book explains what a...
Making cob brick bee hotels used by the hairy footed flower bee
Hairy-footed flower bees love lungwort! At first glance, the all-black female can easily be mistaken for a queen bumblebee in the early spring, albeit she is somewhat smaller and lacks the usual yellow or white bands of some bumblebee queens that forage around the...
How do tree bumblebee queens evict nesting birds?
Great tits are known predators of bumblebees It is known that great tits (Parus major) will predate bumblebees, as filmed by S O'Connor as part of her research about the nesting ecology of bumblebees and Forster-Johnson, A.P. 2002. She mentions that they even...