Weather Stats

Max Temp = 15.6                Min Temp = 2.9              

 Max Wind 24.1 m/h

Max Rain Fall = 202mm    Max Rain in 24 hr Period = 40.9mm      Max Rain in 1 hr Period = 11.3mm   

  Diary

 31st.  A visit to my local patch Cowm Res produced what I really was looking forward to seeing. It's funny as I always seem to spot them in the same place. A patch of trees to the north of the reservoir which holds a few beech, Maple and Oaks interspersed with the odd Hawthorn breaking up the walled fields. The hawthorn seemed to play host to a lot of the Fieldfare. I made my way round at which point hundreds took to the sky coming from the hillside tree tops and from all directions. I quickly took a few snaps and the result was more a record shot than anything else.

 They eventually settled in some tree tops where I took a few more photos before they departed to a distant corner nearing the quarry which is adjoining the reservoir.It was so great to see the Scandanavian visitors that it took a while to decide whether to take a photo or to look through my binoculars at them. As they took to the air I took the oportunity to count them and in total there were 300-400 which was a great count. As they took to the air I took the chance to hide behind a wall in close proximity to a hawthorn they seem to gravitate towards with my camera lens at the ready for a few closer pictures. I waited for some time for them to move back but it seemed as though another Hawthorn at the base of the quarry was a better proposition and so it was as they stayed there until the light was failing so much that a picture would have been impossible.                                                                                                        

As I made my way around the res I also got a distant picture of this female Stonechat that was being observed by a Male at close quarters. I struggled with the pic as I had to scale a wall with not much grip. A lovely bird non the less.

 I also spotted the odd Meadow Pipit, three Mistle Thrush, A female Tufted Duck and as the day drew to a close a Little Owl sang it's murderous call! What was satrange was although I had seen Mistle Thrushes and Fieldfare not a single Redwing was present, something I hope to put right at the weekend.

Well the weather is changing as if it knows it is November tomorrow. It is dry but at 19:30 tonight the temp has already dipped to 4.1 deg. The sky is starting to cover a little so I don't think that a frost will be present tonight, although as the sunny weather is due I am expecting a few night time frosts. This should colour the leaves nicely as with sunny days and cool nights the leaves increase the red possibly to act as a natural sun block to the scortching rays as the leaves expire.

One thing to maybe do while the clear skies arrive at night is to go into a quiet spot if possible in the garden at night and listen for any "sssssseeepppp"or "stuuuuuff" calls which you can sometimes easily hear. If you are lucky enough to latch on to any such calls you most likely are hearing movements of Redwing which is always quite a magical experience. 

29th. A short note today as the weather was sunny and reasonably warm helped by the light winds. Now at first light just before 07:00 now that we are using GMT I looked into the garden to check any activity......non but I did notice a large bounding bird in flight which was a Green Woodpecker. I do see them more these days as they fly over the garden and dip down into a sparsley planted area in the valley. I also noted a male Blackbird, 2 Jays and plenty of Magpies all of which were garden flyovers. I think the numbers should begin to increase as the cold is not that far away which will probably encourage the birds to top up at an easy feed spot.

The temps reached a maximum of 12.5 today which lead to two Red Admirals having a late foray. They both sat on some clear plastic warming in the sun with the odd flutter accross to sample the decaying apple rings I have put out.

I shall again go looking round my local patch "Cowm Res" tomorrow afternoon as I am not in work. I failed to spot any winter Thrushes last week so I hope to put that right. I also am hoping that my digiscoping bracket, which I have given to an engineer friend, will be returned shortly as I am looking forward to testing the new setup. I have added some info to the technical pages about this if you are interested under the photography section. I am still adding to this section so please have a look in if it is of interest.

24th.  The weather has continued it's slide into autumn as rain a strong breeze and the fall in nightime temps have arrived. A low of 4.4 deg was reached at 08:56 this morning which is the lowest so far this month. As I write this at 20:15 the temp has again dropped to 7.4 deg but this may increae as the cloud cover will help it recover. As I set foot outside this morning I knew straight away of the cool temp as for the first time I could see a trail of steam as I breathed out.

A welcome visitor at this time of year finally arrived...and how I look forward to it's arrival. It is such a colourful bird with it's pinks,Blues and rather sargeant like mustashial stripe. It is a Corvid that is often very timid and reacts to any movement or noise. It also has a very loud harsh call and can often been seen collecting autumn spoils. Just in case you are left in any doubt I managed a couple of shots before my presence at the window scared the beauty away.

 Of course the Jay is one of those birds that causes a big stir when it is stumbled upon as unlike a lot of our native Corvids which tend to be black this Corvid is more colourful. It will probably become a regular noe that a food supply has been found so i hope to get a few more images of better quality. I have watched it in previous years take, in it's crop, up to 32 peanuts all in one visit which is quite a feat. I shall be keeping an eye out for him but this may prove difficult during the week as my mind ponders the lack of evening light after the clocks go back at the weekend.

21st. A long quiet spell in the garden as autumn is well upon us. No doubt mother nature is feeding the birds and mammals that have deserted the garden for a short time. The bird which is, at this time of year, always missed as it rarely visits the garden is the Blackbird and it seems agaes since I heard it's flute like song. Collared Doves, Magpies,and the odd Grey Wagtail are still visiting but it really is noticable the abscence of the usual hoardes.

We have had a few butterflies still visiting on the ongoing warm spell in the shape of a Red admiral and a Meadow Brown. They are finding less and less feeding oportunities though as the lst of the flowers begin to fade. The cosmos and the Rudbeckia are still flowering but the flowers are now small and less and less new buds are visible. I envisage a cold snap shortly which will do away with the cosmos straight away. When I look into the garden I am still surprised that the colours in general are still about with the morning glory, verbena bonariensis and nastursum giving a good accopunt of themselves. This is despite the temps beginning to lower. An average temp for the day has now dropped to approx 11 deg but I wonder if it is the night time temps, about 8-9 deg , that have allowed the plants to continue flowering.

The weather, whilst warm, has turned decidedly damp,grey and foggy. As I look out the window at 10:30 this pattern of weather is exactly that with the hills behing the house hardly visible due to the low cloud. As you can see from the weather stats above the total rain count has been increasing and to which will be added to today as the rain begins to fall.

I am working on the technical pages at the moment so if you are interesting in how we get the info we do for the site it may be worth a visit to those pages. It is an expanding section that I am still working on. It is proving difficult at this time of year as I struggle to get any good light to take photos due to me not being home when daylight is upon us.

8th.  A few tidy up jobs have taken place in the garden this morning as the weather has now turned a corner. Often I  put the table and chairs away from outside on the first day of October but in view of the great weather toward the end of september this has not happened until today the 8th of October.There are many other places to sit in the garden if the weather is good enough but it does seem quite some time ago that I could sit outsude on the decking eating my breakfast before I headed off for work.

The garden remains quite colourful due to the conditions mentioned above and just to show this I took a pic of the garden at 11:00 this morning.  

If you look at the pergola I have added a few "apple rings" which I thought might look nice as a little autumnal decoration and also might entice an odd wintering Blackcap, or if they last, a winter Thrush or two! A closer picture shows the simple affair and I hope to add a few more but unsure.....what do you think good or bad? let me know how it looks to you. I just twisted some wire in to a two ply strand, poked holes with a skewer through the apples and then, having pushed the wire through the holes, twisted the wire where the ends meet and hung them up. I saw this idea in the Gardeners World mag and thought I would give it a go. 

One plant which for some reason rarely gets a mention is the Ivy plant which grows near the house and is covering an old concrete clothes post. I trim it back every so often to keep it from reaching the house wall. It houses the Robin nestbox which has a camera fitted and has been used once, two years ago. It is a plant that all wildlife, and non wildlife, gardens should have as it is so versatile and it has a great wildlife value. As stated it is great for nesting birds to build in, has a late flowering period for the last of the insects, it can cover eyesores well and is not bothered about harsh trimming, it grows well in sun or shade and it gives superb fruit early in the season when not much else is fruiting, which attracts a lot of birds like Blackcap,Mistle Thrush, Blackbird and even the ungainly Woodpigeon. If I were to stop and think I would say that this plant has been the most reliable attractant of Insects and birds in the garden....which is quite a claim considering the various plants contained in the garden.

The evening primrose has begun a second flowering spell which is more than welcome as the big sulpur yellow blooms really brighten up an apple tree, that it is growing against and is a showy big flower that only comes out at evening.

6th.The weather took a sudden turn for the worst on the first day of the month which has led to a lot of rain, wind and the odd cool nightime temps. This has continued in the main with sun being very intermittent. It is hard to keep track of the comings and goings of the garden visitors as the mornings and evenings are becoming darker. I can only really keep a close eye on the garden at weekends...which I will do. I will be adding a few pages on some of the equipment my wife and i use to capture the images on the site along with other usefull bits of information like nest cameras and nestbox plans. I will update this when I get the time and light I will nedd to take a few images of my set up.

A bit of good news as this weekend the weather is supposed to be a little better as the pressure has started to rise on the temp station, so I may get chance to do a few little tasks I have been looking at doing for a week or two.