Come into My Yarden, Everything Else Seems To!
We sometimes find Common (I think) Blue butterflies fluttering out in our local streets - central Portsmouth. I assume they've been blown down off the chalk of Portsdown Hill. Saturday morning one visited the yarden and sat around long enough for us to get a positive ID. It was followed in rapid succession by a Small White, then a Red Admiral, which we thought appropriate given the city. Mornings our yarden gets the sun.
We may live Inner City but it's amazing quite how much wildlife there is - and not just the weekly urban fox and Herring Gull attack on black bin-liners put out overnight for the rubbish collection the following day. There is a local charm of Goldfinches - one of which often sits on TV aerials calling, though too high to be easily seen or photo'd for ID purposes. We did try recording its call and comparing it with the one on the RSPB Bird Identifier site. Our recording was really clear (because still partial Lockdown at the time,) their's had a lot of other bird, etc, 'noise'! Ah well.
During Lockdown I've begun to recognise individual Bumblebees which visit our yarden, though I'm still trying to work out whether they're White-tailed or Buff-tailed! We usually have up to three different Bumblebees visiting the flowers in our yarden. On Saturday we had four all afternoon all industriously sipping from the foxglove spikes - clearly a very Bee-approved plant purchase. I've also been following with interest the 'succession' of Hoverfly species over the weeks as I've sat out for lunch on dry days!
So it was a good thing I sowed the seeds of more foxgloves ('Apricot Shades') that afternoon, they'll flower next year. I also sowed Aquilegia (white ones, can't remember the exact name, but also recommended as 'good for pollinators'), mixed lettuce seeds and four more French Bean seeds. These are all in trays/pots on various indoor windowsills until they get big enough to either pot on (foxgloves and aquilegia) and eventually big enough to be at least semi-mollusc resitant when I plant them out. Needless to say, the mixed lettuces will always be a windowsill crop!
And, great excitement this, I finally got positive ID on some swifts! Thought I'd heard some Friday while hanging out washing, Saturday I saw them. This is Very Late, I usually notice them around mid-May, and I've been out in our yard a lot over the past months. But they are finally here!
I may have mentioned that I'd seen a House Martin a few months back on a Lockdown visit to Eastney beach. That was in April/May. I told this to my Bro, who lives in Devon and knows a bit about birds. He said he'd only recently noticed swifts down there too. He also said he'd seen House Martins, but not many Swallows at all as many had succumbed to storms in the Sahara when they tried to migrate back from their South African wintering grounds this spring. I hadn't noticed or heard about this - we don't usually see that many Swallows.
BTW - could a Reader recommend voracious predators for slugs and snails (which are the principle crop in our yarden) which can climb to get the blighters inhabiting our somewhat tall pots and other placed-high-to-get-the-sun plants? 'High' being around 3-5' up. It's dark at ground level in parts of our yarden. The molluscs have no problem at all. Anne-Laure did send me an authentic French recipe for Escargots, but these are UK snails, and we're not that desperate!
We will get a pond eventually, of some form, but can frogs and toads climb high enough to get to the blighters? I don't want the ravening molluscs sitting up high, feasting and laughing at the poor hungry amphibians below! Our yarden is surrounded by walls and too small for a hedgehog - even a 'mountaineering' one!
Still, one of the advantages of gardening in a concrete yard is that we don't have weeds growing up from underlying soil. That much. I've been in some gardens made on soil which have had brambles. Yuk! At least the brambles in our yard are there intentionally, in pots. They were sold as Hanging Basket Blackberries. They're in pots, so confined, I'll be watching to see if they send out runners to invade the surrounding area, as well as whether they get big enough to flower this year. Watch this space, Dear Reader (but don't hold your breath!)
On which note, y'all have a good day now!