SHARING SPRINGTIME

Enjoying our sunny garden with close friends on Sunday reminded Sue and I how privileged we are to own this little patch of southern England and all the wildlife that lives here with us.

one of our almost hand-tame robins

Our few hours together also reminded us of just how important it is to share the joy of all these wonderful spring colours, so I thought that penning a quick blog and adding a few happy snaps taken during this last week might be appreciated by those who love gardening.

tulips provide a glorious burst of colour after the drab winter rains

 planting them in our gravel garden is knee crunching

it's been a very good spring for brimstones, though we fear for them during these recent hard frosts

commas have been fewer this year, though always a colourful treat

our wooded patch and the pond close to the house which the visiting otters use as a swimming pool

sun worshiping

the little stream runs through the heart of the garden past camellias and magnolia stellata

Our two acres of woodland, flowers and shrubs is unashamedly designed, not to be neat and tidy [God forbid!] but to provide a home for the most diverse collection of critters that we’re able to attract.

 we are blessed with many jays, this lady was enjoying her sunbathing by lying on a log outside our kitchen window - lovely birds aren't they

foxes are about most nights, tidying up spilt grain

   male sparrow hawk named 'Fancy Dan' because he was always bathing in the stream

Our remarkably tame pair of sparrow hawks actually nested in a birch tree right in the middle of the garden and raised a chick, so I was able to invite friends to come and take pics of them while they remained so obliging.

flowing water provided Dan with a perfect bathroom - he was a very smart boy  © Mike Read

the chick close to fledging into nearby branches   © Jane Adams

Fancy Dan's daily bath time was followed by hours of careful preening  © Mike Read

 

amicably sharing bird food - we called him Prince Willhelm the Second as our previous one went awol

So in reality our garden is a little nature reserve that in turn provides us with an escape from the realities and horrors of the world that all of us are suffering right now. There’s a lot of madness out there but within our sanctuary we can enjoy mental and physical renewal and while we’re at it, do our bit for the climate crisis.

acers, birches, camellias and rhodos thrive on our moist hillsides

 

Over the forty years that we’ve been lucky to live here, we’ve planted dozens of trees and even more valuable to combat climate change, we’ve wetted the land by digging seven ponds large and small, along with a wooded marsh, then cut a stream to link all the springs from the groundwater together so that freshwater flows from end to end through the garden.

our marsh provides a home for dozens of amorous frogs in the spring

stock doves and many others enjoy a wash and brush up in our crystal clear streams

our minnows are spawning outside the office as I write, early April being their crucial time

Many birds enjoy bathing in this clean water, stock doves, sparrow hawks and buzzards to name a few, and our minnows spawn in them, providing food for visiting kingfishers.

our colourful kingfisher called Kevin, a regular so he had to have a name

 

our main pond requires lots of weeding and dredging but is a magnet for passing ducks

Wetlands capture more carbon than forests, so even a small pond is a little contribution to saving our planet. What’s more, by storing water we reduce the risk of drought or flooding and provide a trickle for our beleaguered rivers.

little egrets are frequent visitors now, though always a pleasant surprise as they were once so rare

otters are a mixed blessing as they trash our aquatic ecosystems, though I'm always delighted when they come as having otters in your garden has got to be one of the great privileges of life.

Even better, by providing water, we’ve created attractive habitat for herons and kingfishers, even egrets and otters, and along with nesting mallard and our colourful native fish, we delight in zipping dragons and damselflies and uncountable invertebrates.

an emperor dragon egg laying, a daily delight in the summer

 

 beautiful demoiselle, a frequent summer visitor, along with the banded variety

four-spottted chasers are occasional visitors in the early summer

magnificent golden-ringed dragonflies are rare here and this one was snatched by a passing hobby!

So if you have a garden, however small, dig a pond!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To counter the increasing threat of drought, we’ve created a dry garden with gravel and planted lots of invertebrate friendly plants and these have attracted squadrons of buzzers, though that will be a story for another time and once the rain stops, maybe spring will return and we can glory in some lovely warm sunshine.

our patch created for bees and butterflies and called the B&B - of course!

 

visiting silver-washed fritillaries are always a treat.

a carder bee enjoying the nectar from a glorious blue salvia

roses round the door - this is albertine, an old but delightful variety - the bees love 'em too  

To help the bees and butterflies, we have also let our 'lawn' by the cottage grow wild and within a few years it's become a wildflower meadow with a surprising variety of plants, including three species of orchid along with snakeshead fritillaries and all of them without our help at all. Ain't nature wonderful if you give it a chance.

spring is sprung in our little meadow in sunny Dorset

southern marsh orchids are the most common with a few spotteds and pyramids as a bonus

the buzzers love all these blooms

 

up to 160 blooms and spreading fast, one of the joys of leaving a garden to grow wild and free

As of yesterday, we can bring more good news, because following on from my previous blog about successful reintroductions of once rare birds, our star osprey CJ7 returned to Poole Harbour yesterday from her winter sojourn in West Africa and if her mate ‘Catch 22’ returns to join her soon, we may well have the first successful breeding pair of ospreys in Southern England for nearly two hundred years … and when the nest site is only six miles from our door, news doesn’t get any better.

CJ7 building her nest on Easter Day in 2020  © Birds of Poole Harbour

The exciting reintroduction of ospreys to Dorset has been made possible by the hard graft of the Birds of Poole Harbour team and the long term vision of Roy Dennis. It was in the mid '70's that Roy and I made a film on ospreys for the RSPB, even travelling to Africa to film them in the Gambia, so below is a pic from one of our Scottish nests, a picture that we hope will be replicated by success in Poole Harbour this summer.

A Scottish pair of ospreys successfully raising two chicks - fingers X'd it will happen here soon

And when we're not admiring ospreys or the graceful red kites overhead ... and not got our heads down planting treasures in the garden, we’ll have to keep our eyes on the skies in the hope that the   white-tailed eagles glide from the Isle of White over our heads and add to the joys of life in sunny Dorset. Aren't we lucky!

amazing - a white-tailed eagle gliding over nearby Poole Harbour  © Birds of Poole Harbour

 

 

WOW!

                                            

Yes, it’s ‘World Osprey Week’ and these most charismatic of birds are fast approaching on the eternal skyways from the west coast of Africa. Hooray for High Flyers!

We live in sunny Dorset and several ospreys have recently passed by on their way to Scotland, including the famous pair ‘Maya and 33’ that have already arrived at their nest on Rutland Water. Remarkably, after their two and a half thousand mile flight from Senegal they landed on their nest within half an hour of each other. Appropriately, it was at mid-day on March 20th, the vernal equinox and first day of Spring, cause for celebration all round! 

We are also getting increasingly excited here at Poole Harbour, for we had a nest occupied here by our own star female CJ7 for all of last spring. 

She was raised and fledged from Rutland Water in 2015 and in spite of this being her first attempt at breeding, she behaved impeccably, building up her new nest and defending it in the hope of attracting a mate. Sadly it wasn’t to be but ‘The Birds of Poole Harbour’ team and all us locals have our fingers X’d that this year will be the first time ospreys have nested on the south coast since their extinction here a hundred and eighty years ago. We were treated to daily excitement by watching her on the camera the team had set up on the nest. We hope that this image from Scotland is replicated in Dorset soon.

Being just six miles from our cottage, it is an extraordinary success, for it was only in the late 1950’s that ospreys successfully returned to nest in Scotland after being driven to extinction, the last pair nesting in 1916. The same happened along England’s south coast and it’s thanks to our friend Roy Dennis and his team and the translocation of youngsters from Scottish nests that they have every chance of returning here too. You can read the whole story by visiting the excellent Birds of Poole Harbour website - www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/osprey/

It seems like only yesterday that Sue and I were living in Scotland for two years, [it was actually in the late ’70's], to make a film about ospreys for the RSPB and with the help of Roy [seen mending one of our nests], we completed the task so successfully that the film sold to forty six countries. This neatly goes to show what truly remarkable and exciting birds ospreys are and just in case you are unaware how remarkable these big birds are, I’ll quote the opening lines of the film Roy and I made all those years ago. The BBC even honoured us with a Radio Times front cover.

                                - THE RETURN OF THE OSPREY -

“The Scottish Highlands, a wilderness of rock and heather, providing refuge for many wild creatures, and one bird in particular, a very special bird, one of the world’s most spectacular hunters - the osprey.

Evolution has set the osprey in a class of it’s own, equipped it with a unique anatomy for supremacy in it’s watery world : five foot wingspan, exceptional eyesight : from it’s sickle beak to it’s strong legs and raking talons, everything about it is designed for a purpose, the only bird of prey in the world to feed exclusively on live fish”.

Our children grew up under their wings so it is no wonder that one of Katie and Peter’s first words was ‘Osprey’! It was in the early years of the osprey’s re-colonisation of Scotland and we lived alongside these charismatic birds for two years. Our love for them is deep in our souls and we pray that this year will see them nesting just down the road in Dorset.

Katie and Peter still get excited whenever they see an osprey, as do Sue and I, so we can’t admire the Birds of Poole Harbour team more for their brave and exciting initiative to re-establish the breeding of ospreys just six miles from our home. These are trying times but if you want the best possible news, the osprey’s imminent return is it! We're all watching and waiting - every day! So far only crows ...

***She's back now though, arriving for a mullet lunch on April 1st and on the nest most mornings. We're praying that she attracts a mate this year, even if it means I'll be wasting hours watching her every move and hopefully, the growth of her chicks. Our fingers are firmly crossed.

But that’s not all the good news. Thanks to Roy’s energy and foresight, another high flyer is now winging around above us here on the south coast, the sea eagle.

This remarkable picture was taken from Hengistbury Head in Christchurch Harbour on March 23rd, just a couple of days ago! It shows two of the youngsters that Roy and his team have translocated from nests in Scotland in the hope that they can recolonise their old haunts around the Isle of White.

Like the osprey, sea eagles were exterminated from Scotland, the last ones nesting in 1916 on a steepling sea cliff on the Isle of Sky. I enjoyed the privilege of making a film for David Attenborough’s BBC One series about their remarkably successful reintroduction to Scotland between 1975 and 1985. Our film followed a few of the 75 translocated youngsters on their journey from nests along the cliffs of Norway to the Isle of Rum on Scotlands’ rugged west coast. Here they were raised by John Love and learnt the skills necessary for their survival and it is the same techniques that will hopefully prove triumphant down here on the Isle of White. They last nested here on Culver Cliff in 1780!

These two great pics were taken by friend and ace lensman Mike Read in Mull.

There are now one hundred and thirty territorial pairs of sea eagles in the UK and in spite of continuing persecution, numbers are increasing and providing substantial support for rural economies. These dramatic birds help raise £2.4 million on Skye and an impressive £5million on the Isle of Mull. You can read all the detail on Roy’s Wildlife Foundation Website - https://www.roydennis.org/

This splendid pic was taken by ace photographer Laurie Campbell for our Catching the Impossible book

Yet another high flyer is also helping stressed rural economies, the extraordinary success of the recolonisation of red kites across much of its’ former range. Their numbers have reached an unbelievable 1,800 pairs and they are increasing every year. 

In fact, it still shocks us that not so long ago we had to travel to remote valleys in West Wales to see one of only a dozen surviving red kites but can now look up and see red kites circling over our Dorset garden. Every one is a moment of magic.

So thanks to all these inspiring conservation initiatives and years of hard work, there is a lot of good news out there, so instead of walking head down, look up and be amazed by all these high flyers overhead. These truly are exciting times - WOW indeed!