nepia
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Everything posted by nepia
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Someone was very busy building that lot; great stuff. The Fort Knox of bird nests; chew on that magpie!
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Replacing gorse with something else
nepia replied to spandit's topic in Forestry and Woodland management
A random small patch on Ashdown Forest this morning. It's not as bad as the stuff nearer the sea or beside the main road that I mentioned earlier but it's not great is it given that it's the end of May; I've seen healthier and more floriferous gorse in December! PXL_20210530_074917543.mp4 -
Back in the 70s and 80s such occurrences were blamed on pesticides and herbicides; wonder what the real reason is! (= random probabilty)
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🤦♂️
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Replacing gorse with something else
nepia replied to spandit's topic in Forestry and Woodland management
Certainly won't have been waterlogging on Beachy Head and the banks I referred to were steep. The plants weren't young either; those on the Downs were wind-shaped gnarly old things -
Replacing gorse with something else
nepia replied to spandit's topic in Forestry and Woodland management
Glad yours is doing well; we seem not to have Gorse Dieback rampaging through the country 😊 -
Replacing gorse with something else
nepia replied to spandit's topic in Forestry and Woodland management
Am I just seeing behaviour typical of the species then - something akin to mass death of bamboo (though in that case we know the cause - flowering)? I need to take a walk on Ashdown Forest and have a look there even if it is - oo - all of 20 minutes drive away! -
Replacing gorse with something else
nepia replied to spandit's topic in Forestry and Woodland management
Good to hear, especially as you're virtually within calling distance! Thanks. -
Replacing gorse with something else
nepia replied to spandit's topic in Forestry and Woodland management
So as not to start a whole new thread... Does anyone know what's happening to the gorse in Sussex and perhaps elsewhere? It looks devastated; nearly all the top growth is dead. We're nearly into June and it's brown, brown, brown. Walking over Beachy Head last week I genuinely thought it had been sprayed as part of scrub control but it's the same on the banks lining the A22. And yet my mate has it on his farm at the top of Scotland and it's thriving so the winter and spring haven't done for it have they? Any similar experiences beyond my limited universe? -
Got a couple living on the edge of the garden but haven't seen others locally. I was on the Downs on the edge of Eastbourne last Friday: we had to walk down the side of a lamb nursery field that must have had 30 or 40 rabbits of all ages mowing the edges. Oh - watched the shadow of a bat for a while at 1.15am today; couldn't see the thing itself but the moon was so bright a shadow kept flitting across the lounge floor!
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Mammals; a couple of rabbits living underground on the edge of the garden, no foxes or badgers, two bats one evening in March and thankfully no deer in the garden but roe aren't far away. There's a ?70 acre field of wheat nearby with a public footpath across it: one day in March we walked that way and there was a herd of at least 40 roe grazing the bottom end of it. Last week I turned off the A22 close by and within yards there was a group of 15 or so on a field boundary by the lane; they're brazen
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We have cats! But they barely hunt and when they do it's easy prey - the odd shrew and they will take weakened/sick birds but they don't bother with actively seeking birds. The birds all but laugh in their faces. Mini's idea of bird stalking is to sit at the bottom of the feeder pole.
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They prefer sunflower hearts to niger it seems; 5 at a time on the heart feeder, the niger ignored The only bird I've ever had consistently taking niger was siskin
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It's surely a freshie, not a saltie. They're very different beasts in their attitude to humans; the voice of the Attenborough is telling me that attacks by freshies are rare and provoked. Perhaps someone living down under can corroborate/correct me
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I'm chuffed about it. Love the wiggle to get into the pump body!
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Good of them to form an orderly queue. Latest here is a goldcrest hopping up and down the side of the house (board cladded) collecting cobwebs and yesterday while I was literally having a blast on Beachy Head my wife and son found where some Great Tits are nesting; watch to the end VID-20210522-WA0000.mp4
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To eat or to get the nestbox (probably too small)?
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We're blessed here: Mr and Mrs Woody must spend half their lives on one of our feeders - how they can still haul their fat asses into the air is a surprise given the amount of peanut and sunflower heart they're getting through. I hope and suspect that it's not all for them though; I can't wait to see a bungling fledgling or two falling about the nearby oaks or copper beeches while Mum and Dad shout 'see dem dangly things down thar? Dem's food dey is'!
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Someone was watching me eat my Chinese last night
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Pushing 'pictures of spring' a bit here but you wouldn't get this in December. Not from here - from the cliffs a few miles shy of John O'Groats; taken this morning
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A big difference but can you put it all down to the winter and spring we've just had? The flower buds set late last summer; could it be that if that process wasn't spot on late flowering this year is the result? Not arguing, just raising a point. Obviously the winter and spring have had a huge effect; I'm 12 miles from the south coast and the first ponticum only showed its flowers at the end of last week
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That's interesting. Frugal was what I thought mine was but so little oil gets onto the chain it's just not right; the build up in the sprocket cover is dry dust and the bar gets way hotter than it should.
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But the 10Ah battery must be a hell of a lump. I've got that saw and a pair of 5aH batteries; they're quite heavy enough thanks! And I put a 14" bar on it; I thought that if I ever wanted a bigger bar I'd turn to a petrol saw. Have you had any problems with the bar oiling? My saw oil's well, the oilways on the bar are fine but next to no oil reaches the chain. My suggestion is that the tangs on the chain can't reach down far enough into the bar to grab the oil. Anyway Ego have it back for now but when it was cutting it was great. I want the saw for a very similar purpose to yourself albeit on a much smaller scale - up to ~10"dia laurel mostly, some holly with it, in a small piece of old, possible ancient, woodland.
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Can't help you but you've got two left hands 😄
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Come here little birdie... 😊 That has wow factor doesn't it
