Daffodils at Packwood House

One of the highlights of Spring every year for me is a trip to Packwood House, Near Lapworth, Warwickshire, to see the daffodil display.

There are thousands of daffodil flowers lining the banks on the lane approaching the House and yet more on the lawns surrounding the front of the house and gardens.

I've driven past several times recently but yesterday afternoon I took the camera to get some photos. Monday seemed a good day to visit as the house and gardens are closed and, as I hoped, there were far less people about! It was really warm and sunny - more like May than March!



























Daffodils are also known as Lent rose and Lent lily due to the time they flower. "Daffodil snow" is an expression which refers to a late fall of snow which arrives after the daffodils are in flower.

According to legend Persephone, whilst wearing white daffodil wreaths, was captured by Pluto and Pluto's touch changed the colour of the flowers to yellow.



Reference: "Discovering the Folklore of Plants" by Margaret Baker - Shire Classics.
I picked up this book last year at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight and it is full of fascinating facts about various plants, trees and flowers.

More Moths and More from the Garden

4 moths in the moth trap this morning - 2 Hebrew Character, 1 Emmelina monodactyla and a possible Clouded Drab.

Emmelina monodactyla - one of the plume moths



Is this a Clouded Drab or yet another Common Quaker?!
I find it hard to take photos of the brown noctuids as the markings never seem to come out on the photograph but this is probably the best picture of a bad bunch!

Edit - Huge thanks to Dean, Ornithom and Stewart for coming to my rescue and confirming this is indeed a Clouded Drab - another new species for the year bringing total species for the year to 10.



Summary of Moths Trapped Saturday, 24th March

6.30 p.m. until dawn
Minimum Temperature 2.4 degrees centigrade
15w Actinic Skinner Trap

Hebrew Character x 2

Emmelina monodactyla x 1

Possible Clouded Drab

As always I am really grateful for any help with id or correction of my mistakes!



Garden Update

A wren has been collecting nest material and taking it into the hanging basket on the patio that was used for roosting by a bird this Winter.



The male wren builds several nests and the female then picks one and finishes her chosen nest. The hanging basket above has been used for nesting before by wrens. Unfortunately several young nestlings fell out - one died but the others were gently placed back inside and, as far as I am aware, fledged successfully. The wren has also been seen taking nesting material into the ivy which would probably be a better choice for a nest site! They nested there last year.

Bluebells are starting to flower already



Part of the mini wildflower meadow had become very overgrown with couch grass over the winter and Brian has decided to dig over about a third and re-seed it.
We have ordered the same wildflower mix that we used when planting the meadow originally which includes Birdsfoot Trefoil, Corn Poppy, Cowslip, Field Scabious, Lady's Bedstraw, Lesser Knapweed, Meadow Buttercup, Meadow Cranesbill, Musk Mallow, Ox-eye Daisy, Ragged Robin, Red and White Campion, Ribwort Plaintain, Self Heal, Salad Burnet, Sorrel, Wild Carrot, Yarrow and Yellow Rattle.

Here's a few photos of the work in progress!








When it was originally planted the meadow was dominated by poppy in the first year, then ox-eye daisy and then red campion over the following years. It will be interesting to see what happens this time although I hope some of the St John's Wort, much beloved by insects, survives intact as there doesn't seem to be any in this mix.

A "Smiley" Face!



Hawthorn leaves are unfurling



and blackthorn flowers (which appear before the leaves) are opening



I saw my very first butterfly of the year in the garden while I was taking these photos - a buttery yellow male Brimstone. Wonderful to see but it didn't linger so no pics!

House Sparrows are collecting nest material and taking it under the eaves and the pair of Stock Dove are still visitng.

Finally, a pair of buzzards were soaring high over the garden - I had the 14-42mm lens on the camera so they appear as a tiny dot in the photo below - if you enlarge you may just be able to make the one bird out!

More of the same plus one new "tick" for the Year

It was around 11.4 degrees centigrade when I set up the moth trap at 6.30 pm. last night with the temperature eventually falling to 3.2 degrees centigrade.

Apart from a dozy looking wasp there were just 3 moths in the trap this morning - two Hebrew Characters and one of the smaller "micro" moths - Light Brown Apple Moth which is the first one I've seen this year. I did try and take a photo but it flew off as I was trying to pot it so here's yet another picture of a Hebrew Character!




Summary of Moths Trapped Friday, 23rd March
GMS Week 4

6.30p.m. until dawn
Minimum temperature 3.2 degrees centigrade
15w Actinic Skinner Trap

Hebrew Character x 2

Light Brown Apple Moth x 1 (NFY)

2012 Moth Species = 9



I'll run the trap again tonight in the hope of catching something a bit different!

Pheasant Photos - for Chris

Chris from Las Aventuras (please see link to his blog on right hand side of page) mentioned in a comment on my last post that he would love to see a photo of a Pheasant in the wild.

The bird I spotted yesterday was in the middle of the field and too far away to take a picture with the 70 - 300mm lens but here's a couple of photos I took in January last year at Ladywalk Nature Reserve where a male and female Pheasant were feeding under the feeders. It was my first outing with the lens I had just had for Christmas so the photos were some of my first attempts - husband adjusted the contrast on Photoshop at the time to try and make them better!

Pheasant (Phagianus colchicus) Male




Female Pheasant





I will try and get some better photos when I am out on my travels and if I ever manage to visit Norfolk I will try and get pics of Golden Pheasants.


Spotted my first greenfinch of the year on the garden feeders this morning - the first garden sighting this year!

More Worn Moth LBJ's!

Belatedly a brief post on moths trapped last weekend. The minimum temperature was minus 1.0 degrees centigrade so it was a surprise to find a few moths in the trap.

One was a nicely marked Hebrew Character but the other two were well worn noctuids looking remarkably similar at first glance (well, to me at least!)




I am pretty sure this is a Small Quaker but please leave a comment if I am wrong!



This particular individual is even harder! I thought Chestnut at first but a look at the Moth "bible" and various websites have revised that provisional id and I think it may be Clouded Drab.

Edit - many thanks to Stewart and Dean for correcting my id - this one is a Common Quaker!



Any correction of above id's would, as always, be very welcome!

Summary of Moths Trapped Sunday, 18th March, 2012
(GMS Week 3)

6.30 p.m. until dawn

Minimum temperature -1.0 degrees centigrade

15w Actinic Skinner Trap

Hebrew Character x 1

Small Quaker x 1 (NFY)

plus

Clouded Drab?? x 1

Edit Common Quaker x 1 (not Clouded Drab!)



Moth Species 2012 = 8


I was in North Warwickshire today so I stopped off in an area of huge "prairie" type fields where I have seen hares in the past. No sign today and the only birds around were crows, blackbirds, wood pigeons, black-headed gulls and pheasants together with a pair of yellowhammers (my first sighting this year).

Caught in the Act!

There were two clumps of frogspawn in the pond this morning



and when I glanced out of the kitchen window mid-morning it was obvious that there was lots of frog action in the pond. I put the 70-300mm lens on the camera and managed to get some pictures. I didn't bother with the tripod partly because I was worried that the frogs might disappear if I went back into the house but mainly because I had to clamber over the rockery behind the pond to get the sun behind me and its a bit of a precarious position to mess around with the tripod!

Here you can see a male and female frog in an "amplexus" embrace. When the females return to the pond a male may get in this position and remain there for days or weeks until spawning begins. As far as I am aware no-one knows what exactly triggers the spawning. The female lays eggs and fertilization by the male takes place externally. He has to shed sperm as soon as the eggs are laid as the spawn rapidly swells in water and within a few minutes the eggs are no longer accessible to sperm.



You can see from the photo how swollen the female's belly is with eggs.



I could count up to 7 frogs in the pond and here's some more photos of the frogs and "action".















There was plenty of croaking to be heard too. Just have to hope now that there won't be any hard frosts and temperatures below freezing that could damage the frogspawn.


Finally, one of the stock doves has been feeding each day in the garden and I managed to get a photo at long last through the kitchen window.

A Walk in March around Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens

"Daffy down-dily
has come up to town
In her yellow petticoat
and her green gown"





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I went a walk around Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens for an hour or so yesterday afternoon. It was cold and gloomy with grey skies but there were signs of Spring everywhere I looked and the daffodils are already putting on a lovely show.

There were a lot of birds about - all the usual species I see there: blackbirds, carrion crows, magpies, wood pigeons, blue, great and long-tailed tits, wren, robin and dunnock. It was nice to see a pair of mistle thrushes (possibly they already have a nest). A moorhen was on the North Pond - last year they bred here. Greenfinch, song thrush and bullfinch were great sightings and all new "ticks" for the list of birds I have seen at the Gardens. A great spotted woodpecker drummed somewhere in the distance both at the start and end of the walk.

I did see a blue tit with a beakful of nesting material near the Stumpery - this seems really early to me compared with nesting dates in our garden. I've had a look at the Collins New Naturalist book on British Tits by Christopher Perrins and he mentions that "Late March nests occur exceptionally, though these are mainly in gardens where nesting starts slightly earlier than in woodland." I will keep an eye out for further signs of activity when I next visit.

Crown Imperial plants are now in bud in one of the borders near the entrance. These produce beautiful flowers and later seedheads.



Melon Ground



Daffodils


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"Daffodils that come before
the swallow dares,
And take the winds of March
with beauty".

Shakespeare

Looking back towards the entrance



This should have been a photo of hyacinths but I managed to upload the wrong photo of an out of focus bud!



Daffodils in the North Orchard


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Blossom in a hedgerow around the edge of the orchard







The maze is located between the Lower Wilderness and the Kitchen Garden. The exact age of the maze is unknown but it is believed to have been added to the Gardens in the nineteenth century. "It is a straightened mirror image of the trapezium shape of the Hampton Court Maze designed by George London and Henry Wise" according to the Gardens Tour Guide.






Lungwort is in flower in the Lower Wilderness



and one of the many pathways in this area of the Gardens



The Secret Garden





The South Kitchen Garden - all cleared and ready to be planted. This Garden is based on a plan by Batty Langley in his book "New Principles of Gardening" which was published in 1728.

For lots more information on Batty Langley and his work please follow the link on the right hand side to The Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens blog (http://castlebromwichhallgardenstrust.blogspot.com) and see the first blog posting in March.



Primrose Bank





I left the Walled Garden and went a walk around the more informal Extra Gardens. Here's a photo of the South Pond from the stumpery. Both this and the North Pond were full of frogspawn






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Figurines on the Green House





The Upper Wilderness



Getting ready for the summer




Parterre looking towards the trellis surrounded site of a Gazebo



Castle Bromwich Hall Hotel




As I've mentioned before the only editing I normally do of the photos is cropping but on this post I have played around a bit with the brightness and contrast on the photos with an asterisk underneath. Not sure if I have improved the photos but it was fun experimenting!