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The Grampound Times

Edition 42

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Go Wild in the Garden
Gillian Thompson

Spending time in the garden, inevitably means you come into contact with some of the wildlife who share the garden with you. Some creatures are more welcome than others, of course, who could object to a butterfly, but the antics of a squirrel, intent on digging up your crocuses for his own private larder, is harder to stomach.

Frogs have figured prominently, ever since we installed a pond. In January they start singing for a mate – a positive sign that winter is on its way out. By February the pond is full of frogspawn. Fully formed froglets emerge from the pond in May/June, and then great care has to be taken when mowing the lawn (they like to hide there). Some safety measures have to be taken to protect them, for example, a lid, obviates the necessity of rescuing them from the water butt – they can jump in, but cannot so easily get out! Last year I found the skeleton of a froglet, which had jumped into a glass jar that was being stored in the glasshouse – it must have been an unpleasant death.

During the day they like to use the same damp, shady hiding spots, one of these spots is a particular large pot, which houses one of my hostas. I don’t mind this, they like slugs and help to keep the population down, but the frog certainly objects to me, when I accidentally drench him with water, when watering the plant.

Mice inhabit the Cornish hedge at the back of the garden, and occasionally visit the garden itself. At one time they found an access point to the glasshouse and startled me when I was working in there. They have now taken the hint and it is some time since I last shared the glasshouse with a mouse.

We feed the birds all year round, but rather less food is put out for them in the summer months. In January 2004 we took part in the RSPB’s “Bird Watch” weekend and recorded the birds that visited the garden during a 60-minute period, they included:

• 2 x Blackbirds
• 8 x Blue tits
• 6 x Chaffinches
• 2 x Coal tits
• 2 x Collared doves
• 3 x Dunnocks
• 4 x Great tits
• 15 x Greenfinches
• 4 x House sparrows – squabbling in the Clematis
• 2 x Robins
• 1 x Song thrush – occasionally, you can hear the thrush as it tries to smash a snail’s shell against a handy stone “anvil”.
• 1 x Wren
• 2 x Long-tail tits
• 22 x Goldfinches – these were “charming” to watch. One of their numbers tossed down sunflower seeds for the rest to eat from the ground.
• 3 x male Pheasants, 2 x female

The Pheasants are regular visitors, but no respecter of plants! In Spring 2005 a pheasant hatched her chicks (8 or 10) in the raised bed, not more than five feet from our front door. She would leave the eggs for the briefest time to feed and took very little notice of us, pottering nearby. She was well camouflaged and unless you knew she was hiding under the Oriental poppy, you wouldn’t be able to spot her. One Friday night she was still there, but on the Saturday morning she and her chicks were gone – leaving broken eggshells, one rancid egg; one chick partly formed (we cracked open the egg to see) and one chick barely alive. We took it indoors and popped it in a box on the radiator. It seemed to be making a recovery. From being close to death’s door, it fluffed up and started to chirrup, but was too weak to stand, refused the crushed seed and water we tried to give it and died during the night – probably just as well, quite what we would have done with a fully grown pheasant wasn’t thought through!

More recently, we have had a sparrow hawk visit. I haven’t seen him make a kill yet, but what superb flight manoeuvrability. Even in the confined restraints of an overcrowded garden, he could swoop and turn on a sixpence.

One magical day last summer, swallows gave an aerobatic show as they chased the flying ants, which had just emerged. The only way to see the action was to keep your eye on the ants, and then if you were lucky you would see a swallow catch one.

There are grass snakes (and their leathery eggs) in the compost heap. We had assumed that the snakes stayed fairly close to their “home in the heap”, until one day when there was a bit of a commotion as frogs vacated the pool area, to line up on the path. We had never seen this happen before and then we saw the larger, female snake in the garden pond, where she was intent on keeping the local frog population in check – apparently snakes are very fond of frogs in their diet.

Snakes are not among my favourite garden visitors, there is something about the speed and way they move and I have been known to make such a fuss that a long suffering partner bundles them in a carrier bag and takes them to somewhere more suitable – Creed Churchyard to be precise.

Dragonflies are beautiful to look at, but I find them rather frightening when they get too close, and they seem to have absolutely no sense of direction – they frequently get up under the garden parasol, where they buzz disconcertingly until guided to freedom. But for ten or so days at the beginning of June, we watch fascinated as dragonfly nymphs, two inches long crawl out of the pond and attach themselves to the leaves of the flag iris. There a fully formed dragonfly emerges from a hole just behind the head of the nymph, they then spread their wings (to dry them) before flying away. They leave their skin cases behind, which look rather gruesome still clinging, lifeless, to the iris leaves.

Thanks to a recent wildlife programme on TV, we’ve since learned that dragonflies (as we know them – complete with wings – are short-lived creatures, surviving for only a few weeks), but they do live for two or three years as nymphs underwater, where their diet includes tadpoles, which explains why of the masses of spawn laid in our pond each spring, only a few miniature frogs make it to adulthood.

Two hedgehogs make occasional, nocturnal visits, they were last seen snuffling and snorting their way across the lawn, on a starlit night in early August.

We only have a small garden but the number of creatures we share it with is considerable – there are doubtless many more, too secretive for us to have spotted. With the exception of the slugs and snails we adopt a “live and let live” approach to them all, they add yet another dimension to the garden.