Moonlight Becomes You

With perfectly clear skies and the time for a full moon, to be cliched, it's absolutely magical.

I cannot resist a walk out on a moonlit night, when everything is bathed in white moonlight, the goddess Selena gazing down upon the land.

Cold eye of Selena casts her white light.

Taking the camera with me and setting on available light allowed me to capture some of the feeling, although it only hints at how it looked and felt.

Deep shadows create a feeling of mystery on familiar walks.

Trees are silvered edged.

Next time the moon is out bright, try a walk under her, maybe you too will feel some of the mystical qualities it gives to the land.

Mystery Walk

Breaking up a garden into different compartments can make a piece of land seem far larger than it is. This works on even small gardens. Simply designing it so that the whole garden cannot be seen with a single glance.

Okay our garden is that much larger than others. The top area is an acre in size. But still we have created areas that have to be walked to to find them, you have to take a mystery walk around paths. Much of the garden is simple in itself, large trees and shrubs, all to enrich the area and attract wildlife. What has now come on nicely is our Holly tunnel. Part of the hedge on one of the banks around the perimeter of the garden was Holly (Ilex aquifolium). This area of Holly is mostly male, so we don't get berries on the bush, but it is valuable for pollinating other female bushes in the garden so they burst with berries during the Winter. Well for as long as the birds leave them alone, but that is fine by us.

The tunnel creates a wonderful link from the bottom area of the garden into the centre part and is a cool dark walk on a hot Summer day.

Love Lichens

Living over the West of Britain means we have a damper atmosphere, and cleaner air! This is amply shown by the amount of lichen that grow on our trees.

It's a very good indicator that air pollution levels are very low if lichen grow in abundance. The greater numbers of varied lichens mean less pollution, the longer the lichen the cleaner the air.

Many people worry about lichen taking nutrients from the tree. But they are definitely not parasitic. They take nothing whatsoever from the tree and are completely harmless, in fact they give shelter to many insects over winter creating a well stocked larder for birds. We feel they add an air of maturity to a garden.

Last One?

Just a day back I released the 13th Vole caught in the cupboard under the sink. Hopefully the last, fingers crossed.

Cold Lovers

Cold days and nights are no deterrent to some cold lovers around. During the evenings, attracted by light from the room small winter moths gather on the opposite side of the glass.

Winter moths (Operophtera brumata)

They are classed as pests by many, especially apple growers who spray their trees with regularity when the small looper caterpillars start munching holes in the foliage and sometimes small fruitlets. The caterpillars can it seems go so far as to defoliate trees, although the tree usually overcomes this to regrow new leaves.

We never see much damage to our Apple trees, and take little notice of what their is. Granted we are surrounded by other trees that the moths show a liking to such as Oak, Ash and Sycamore, so maybe it spreads the numbers over other trees. The caterpillars are in fact a very valuable source of food just at the right time for nesting birds to feed their young. So for us we are glad to see there are an abundance of these little moths around to feed our bird population. We turned the light off and within seconds there was not a moth to be seen.

Delicate Flower

Flowering in spite of all the cold weather, this small Helleborus is a welcome sight throughout winter.

Helleborus 'Silver Lace'

A small plant when I first bought it and now bulking up quite nicely in the garden, giving some lovely welcome flowers in the dark Winter days.

Fungi

It was quite surprising to find this small cluster of fungi growing on a stump in the hedge. Most have long disappeared, yet these appear after the really cold weather and deep freeze that we have just had.

The last of our visitors?

Two days back I had to release two more voles caught under the kitchen sink. This time I released them a good distance away, well over three times the minimum distance that is needed for small rodents, just in case we are getting revisits from previous releases.

This morning there was yet another captured, this means there have been twelve in total. So the traps will have to be reprimed and set once more.

They Are Still Here

It's simply incredible, we are up to nine voles under the sink. The eighth was caught New Years Eve morning. Unfortunately as I took it in the trap out of the front gates and a little walk down the drive, I felt a wobble in the trap and looked to find it had escaped. No sign of it anywhere, it had just ran into the undergrowth as quick as anything.

So I re-primed the trap and put it back under the sink. checking up early on New Years Eve, there was nothing in the trap, but all the Peanut Butter had gone. So I took it out and found this to my surprise.

In a short period of the afternoon, one had chewed a hole in the trap to escape! This really took some doing. It had started with one of the drainage holes that can be seen in the bottom of the trap and just gnawed through the plastic. Bits were everywhere on the shelf. It's possible that this is a returning vole from the one that escaped, although it is difficult to see how they are getting in here other than the way we speculate on, by one of the cats bringing in a heavily pregnant female.

I have now made a repair with a mouldable filler and wait for it to really harden. Meanwhile I found another of my live mouse traps and have put that under the sink, although it is not one of the most successful kinds I have used. But it may do the trick.

Thankfully voles as well as mice are not as hard to catch as rats in a live trap. Rats are so intelligent and you have to use your wits against them. It's easy to make them suspicious of a trap and I have found you have to put some really delicious stuff in to tempt them. If you fail once with a rat and it gets out of the trap before it springs, it is a heck of a job to entice them again as they have learnt not to trust the trap.

Mice on the other hand don't seem to pick up that the trap is out to get them and will come back over and over again to the same trap to eventually get caught.

Minimum distances

If you do catch things in live traps, there are minimum distances to release the animals. Mice and small rodents should be released no less than 100 yards as the crow flies. A bit further away just to be safe. Any less and they will keep returning.

Rats on the other hand have to taken 1 mile away from where they are caught, otherwise you will be plagued by the same animal who is a lot more wily for the experience.

Caution

A word of caution. Here in Britain, rats are classed as vermin and as the law stands once caught cannot be released again even into the wild (this also includes Grey Squirrels). So it is left to your discretion if you are in this situation. Some people catch them live and then drown them. This too is illegal and anybody caught doing so can be prosecuted for unnecessary suffering of an animal.

Happy New Year