Battling the wildlife

Now that we have rain (intermittently) and some more temperate warmth, autumn vegetable growing is resuming, in fits and starts.  Partly the fits and starts are the result of having other things to do, but partly also because wildlife gets in the way.  My late August sowing of brassica seeds had to be repeated when the seedlings were grazed off by a snail or slug in the cold frame (I can’t find the culprit to remove it!); the new sowing is in the greenhouse on the staging, where the seedlings will be relatively safe.  The slug/snail didn't seem to have a taste for the radicchio seedlings which were also in the cold frame, but just in case I've planted them out in one of the veg beds, under plastic bottle cloches, where they seem to be at least surviving.  

Down in the veg plot, the spring/early summer-sown brassicas had just started to shrug off the damage caused by the ravages of the flea beetles and to put out fairly undamaged leaves, but it looks as though the pigeons or the partridges have been grazing on the new growth, taking almost all of it off.  Only the taller of the two sprouting broccoli plants seems to have been spared (too high for the birds to reach?).  Some old fleece and net bags have been deployed to keep them off!  It’s not pretty but if it works …

When I mentioned in the last post that the wildlife was returning, I omitted to say that, unusually, we don’t seem to have a squirrel visiting, even though the hazels are dropping their nuts.  Normally there’s a grey furry visitor burying hazelnuts all over the lawn, but not this year.  It can’t last; presumably the vacancy will be filled in due course by another squirrel!

The cooking apple tree is also dropping its fruit, but – again, unusually – there don’t seem to be any birds pecking at the apples.  No blackbirds or thrushes at all; and where are the starlings?  About a month ago I did find a dead male blackbird in an improbable position under the old Belfast sink that acts as an alpine trough (I buried him next to the ‘Comte de Chambord’ rose on the edge of the veg plot), but I haven’t seen any blackbird, dead or alive, since then.  There was talk some months back of a disease affecting blackbirds; I hope that’s not the reason.  And even the green woodpecker, which was around a couple of times in the summer, seems to be absent, despite his love of apples.  Still, it won't be long before the Scandi-avians (redwings and fieldfares) will blow in for the winter.

On a more positive note, a little group of warblers - possibly a family party - was fly-catching round the big cotoneaster at the entrance to the drive the other day, and one or two have come to the patio for a drink, as has a greenfinch – so not all the birds are staying away!