Wildlife

My Jack Russell disappears most nights into the orchard, he returns with a juvenile fox, at first I thought the fox would attack him, but they seem to be the best of friends. This has gone on since spring. 
I’ve planted a small area with different lavenders I’m hoping to grow them on and then thin them out for other areas of the garden. The hope is to attract butterflies and to later keep bees.

Guess where I like to sit in the evening,? In the winter I’m going to remove some of the dead trees to open the view up. Some people think it’s me being introverted, I just think it’s peaceful.

I've been delighted to see a fox three times over the last few evenings. The first time, I happened to be drawing the bedroom curtains just as it trotted through a garden that's directly across the road.

The next night, it appeared at the same time  (I think it must like its routines as much as I like mine), but stopped there for a wash and then laid down until it got so dark that I couldn't see it any more.

When I drew the curtains last night (a little later than before), it was trotting in the other direction, with some supper hanging from its mouth.

We are growing strawberries and raspberries at home at the moment and whenever some new fruit appears it disappears the next day. It has to be picked as soon as it ripens.

Also some sunflowers got dug up. It could be squirrels as well get a lot of them where I live. The house is near a big oak tree.

I like the Great spotted woodpeckers when they come in. It is fascinating watching them going up and down the tree trunk.

I saw 22 different types in a year, some came most days but others occasionally, or just once or twice.

We have trees and a field nearby. Years ago I lived near an estuary and used to love watching the waders.

Everytime I go in the garden I get eyeballed by at least one hoverfly and often two, I've been planting for wildlife for ages now and use no chemicals in my garden unless someone else smuggles them in. 

We do have a hedgehog snuffling about sometimes, Fearn tried to pick it up and got a load of prickles in her mouth, now she just stands over it and barks!

That's cool, how many did you get? I'm very lucky here because I'm in the middle of lots of different habitats, heath, woodland, freshwater marsh and salt water marsh! We get lots of odd birds fling over from spoonbills to sea eagles. My favourite birds in the garden though are the jackdaws, they nest in my chimney and the same pair have been here for years and come for food every time I feed the chickens. They are very friendly. What's your favourite bird in your garden?

How lovely, I have never seen a purple hairstreak. I have seen 3 different ones today. It seems that there are more again this year and I am making sure there is water available, as I believe that was a factor in the reduction 3 years ago. That's a good idea to see how many species you get. I kept a bird record last year for my garden.

Thanks for sharing! It's been so hot and dry recently here that I imagine a lot of wildlife will be glad of the water. I saw my first purple hairstreak butterflies of the year today, I'm hoping to get my garden butterfly species count up to 30, so far I'm on 26 species.