19 May 2009
GREAT TIT FLEDGLING CRASH LANDS IN THE POTATOES
07.54: Adult great tit still regularly coming and going with food. Appears from and disappears to direction of the lime tree. Has just popped up to the nest box hole with food and tried to entice visible youngster out with it. After a few false offerings it went away.
07.58: Is now perched on pea sticks in view of nest, emitting a chattering trill occasionally.
08.05: First fledgling leaps the nest, down to crash land in the peas and spuds.
08.09: I had to interfere! Caught the tiny morsel beneath my flat cap by the spinach and cauliflowers after a scramble through three rows of spuds. I lifted the little fellow up on to the top of a Lonicera nitida hedge between greenhouse and shed.
08.12: Can’t see the little bird now. But adult is in that area seeking him out having just been into the box to feed the remaining babes. Lots of squeak-chattering and adult/fledgling communication. I know it’s life and death for the tiny birds but the intensity of pressure is heavy for me too, man! It is with great releif that I am able to report the fledgling has been attended to in the hedge with food. There appear to be a pair of adult great tits now in the vicinity.
08.28: Adult back on the pea sticks. No food in its beak. Just calling that twin-syllabled note. Flitting from one perch to another (there are a lot of canes around abouts for sunflowers and to mark the veg rows).
08.30: Gone again, to the elders on The Hangings.
08.33: Still much high-pitched cheeping from within the nest box.
08.35: Adult in box with food. Almost immediately out again.
08.36: Can still hear recently fledged youngster calling from top of the hedge.
08.45: There’s another chick on the verge of fledging poking its head out of the nest box hole. Adult has been flying back and forth, up to chick and back down again. Now squeezes in past it through hole and down into nest.
08.51: It’s all go out here! Great tits with fledglings in hedges and chicks still in nest – all hungry and vulnerable. Sparrows descending in cheeky flocks on my rows of peas. Wrens making more noise than I can remember for a while. Constant to-ing and fro-ing of blackbirds. Unfortunately my vigil must end because now I have to go to work.
PLANTING OUT SOYA BEANS
I have planted out twenty soya bean plants, variety Ustia. Reputed to be self-pollinating and bred to be harvested in the UK. Last night I constructed a south-facing three-sided shelter of twin-walled polycarbonate sheeting to create, I hope a favourable microclimate for them. The little plants, one per 9cm pot sown on 7 April, went out at 25cm intervals in parallel rows 45cm apart. I have another twenty-four in the greenhouse sown on 9 May which are yet to show, although some are just starting to lift and crack the surface of their compost filled pots.
OLD BROW LATEST
Another Old Brow meeting at the end of Bimport. A gathering of council officials to hear on-site representations and opinions regarding the latest application to construct 16 retirement homes with 11 parking spaces where once stood an old family house in extensive grounds. I made some notes and recount them here:
Yellow-jacketed woman explaining plans mentions elevated views of the Blackmore Vale, currently screened by trees. English Heritage has not objected to this application in respect of the proximity of Scheduled Ancient Monuments.
Highways man says original consent was approved for five large dwellings and that the new application is forecast to generate comparable traffic (approximately 50 vehicle movements a day) so Highways is “unable to sustain any objection.”
The Applicant’s rep claims this scheme has less visual impact than the previous (approved) scheme.
Tree Officer says that trees alongside the footpath on Castle Hill Green and those between the proposed houses and view are TPO’d and will remain, though lesser shrubs and “poor specimens” will get the chop. I think I hear him state that there will “be no ingress” into the shrubbery and pond area. The big cedar will remain.
Someone from NDDC says that the footprint of this scheme will match that of the last. They say this new one will be “slightly” visible from Enmore Green and St James Street. Apparently the developers want to integrate the Scheduled Ancient Monument into the garden/green space integral to this site.
Shaftesbury Town Council opposed this development as it goes against the Local Plan by urbanising and degrading the slopes plus adversely affecting the neighbouring public open spaces.
Tags: cauliflower, great tit, old brow, pea sticks, peas, potatoes, shaftesbury, soya bean, spinach, the hangings