dantheman
Bah humbug
Well, 2 fields to be a little more precise… but no matter.
Life has begun anew with a relocation down to the ‘best birding county’ in the UK, Cornwall, and a bit of a phase shift. Now joining the landowning masses, with aims of becoming a small scale farmer/smallholder/market gardener/survivor, I have about 5 and a half acres of pasture fields, with hedgerows, which we intend to farm organically, and generally improve for wildlife along the way. We moved down at the end of August, renting in the delightful (?) and busy town of Falmouth, meaning an unfortunate daily commute and a damp house to live in.
I’ve been monitoring the wildlife at the fields with 60 or so species of birds seen from or on the land, regular moth trapping and other incidental wildlife recorded. A visit for 3 weeks in May to try and set up some of the basic infrastructure resulted in a few extra species seen, with both Osprey and Black Kite over in one rather extreme afternoon!
The floral diversity of the fields, improved pastureland, is not great, and the Cornish hedgerows contain very few trees of note, mature or otherwise, Blackthorn predominating in almost monocultural fashion. 50 or so plant species noted so far nonetheless.
Barn Owl(s) usually seen each evening, with one often visible roosting in its newly installed roost box in a neighbours field. Woodcock regular and a flock of c. 50 Meadow Pipit about (it was 200 earlier in the autumn). At the moment (end of November, seemingly endless gales coming in from the west) it is pretty windswept and bleak, but it can only get better? At some point?
Life has begun anew with a relocation down to the ‘best birding county’ in the UK, Cornwall, and a bit of a phase shift. Now joining the landowning masses, with aims of becoming a small scale farmer/smallholder/market gardener/survivor, I have about 5 and a half acres of pasture fields, with hedgerows, which we intend to farm organically, and generally improve for wildlife along the way. We moved down at the end of August, renting in the delightful (?) and busy town of Falmouth, meaning an unfortunate daily commute and a damp house to live in.
I’ve been monitoring the wildlife at the fields with 60 or so species of birds seen from or on the land, regular moth trapping and other incidental wildlife recorded. A visit for 3 weeks in May to try and set up some of the basic infrastructure resulted in a few extra species seen, with both Osprey and Black Kite over in one rather extreme afternoon!
The floral diversity of the fields, improved pastureland, is not great, and the Cornish hedgerows contain very few trees of note, mature or otherwise, Blackthorn predominating in almost monocultural fashion. 50 or so plant species noted so far nonetheless.
Barn Owl(s) usually seen each evening, with one often visible roosting in its newly installed roost box in a neighbours field. Woodcock regular and a flock of c. 50 Meadow Pipit about (it was 200 earlier in the autumn). At the moment (end of November, seemingly endless gales coming in from the west) it is pretty windswept and bleak, but it can only get better? At some point?
)
