BIRD LIFE

We are fortunate to share our beautiful countryside surroundings with a wonderful selection of birds, and keeping parts of our garden wild certainly has helped.

We hear (and occasionally see) owls: three types - the tawny owl, barn owl and little owl. We think several tawny owls fledged here in 2021 and four little owls fledged here in 2017.

Other birds of prey gracing our land are common buzzards (photo), red kites and kestrels. Three kestrels fledged in the trees above the spring in 2019.

Our little brook and the lake in the field next door is often visited by Harry the grey heron where he fishes (and in 2023 with his partner!). Other water birds include mallards, coots, moorhens, mandarins, various geese and lapwings. We have resident swans with their new cygnets born in late Spring each year, and that spend most winters enjoying our flooded gardens and car park. 

In early 2023 in the floods we were visited by black swans too (photo) and a little egret in the 2024 flood.

Whenever it floods we're also blessed with the thrilling sight of kingfishers with their electric blue plumage flashing across the water, fishing in the floodwater.

We're also visited by green woodpeckers, lesser spotted woodpeckers and greater spotted woodpeckers, whose new families were born in 2017, 2020 and 2022.

The noisiest birds by far are the crows, with many roosting in the huge trees around us, croaking late into the evenings and again from early morning. These include rooks, jackdaws, magpies, jays and, in the summer, the highly vocal cuckoo.

Treecreepers have appeared since the first pandemic lockdown of 2020 and, in 2022 we were priveleged to have a pair of nightingales here.

New to our garden in 2023 were blackcaps, willow warblers, garden warblers, chiffchaffs, goldcrests and a very chatty yellowhammer (see our photos). In 2024 the garden was graced with hawfinches for the first time.

Pheasants are a plenty, plus we're blessed with garden birds such as blue tits (and their fledglings), bearded tits (2020), great tits, long tailed and coal tits, robins, wrens, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds, song thrushes, pied and grey wagtails (nesting in our back yard in 2022, photos) chaffinches, bullfinches, goldfinches, dunnocks and skylarks.

We were lucky enough to photograph blue tits fledging here on the 1st June 2013.

MAMMALS, FISH AND BUGS

This beautiful environment is shared by a plethora of creatures. Here are just some...

In the brook we have crayfish and, swimming downstream to spawn, the occasional pike. When the garden and car park flood we're joined by carp!

In the fields around us, and sometimes in the garden, we see muntjac, roe deer, fallow deer, red deer and Sika deer. 

Wonderful badgers scurry around at night and sometimes we're lucky enough to spot a weasel. 

There are plenty of foxes, often barking at night.

Being a watery place and with several ponds in the garden, we see many frogs and toads. Each year thousands of froglets appear, hopping across the gardens and car park. An amazing sight.

Frogs and Toads (scores of froglets every June!)

Grass Snakes (living in their houses here and producing new families each year)

Field Mice and Voles

Grey Squirrels

Pipistrelle Bats and a larger bat (unknown)

Various moths and butterflies

Dragonflies, damselflies, ladybirds, spiders

Bees, wasps and beetles