By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

The Wildlife Gardener had a strange feeling that there might be something in the henhouse nestbox this morning. How right I was!

Yes, the WG hens’ first egg! For just a second as I opened the hatch, I felt like Howard Carter peering through the hole in Tutankhamun’s tomb: a ‘wonderful thing’.

Read the rest...

By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

In Henmania Part 1 the Wildlife Gardener told us about her plan to obtain some poultry for her garden, and how she got a ramshackle old ark - but no hens. Read on to see whether her new residents will at last take their places!

The ark was mended. 20 kgs of chicken feed, 80m of wire netting, and 9 fencing stakes were purchased. Where were the chickens?

At last, the local poultry farm had 18-week-old point-of-lay pullets available: “You’d better get here early, luv, we’ve had more enquiries than we have pullets.” I hastily dumped the JWGs at school and roared off to Turner’s Hill to join the queue at the farm gate. 08-reg BMWs with chino-ed ex-bankers lined up alongside travellers’ muddy pickups. A gnarled grandfather puffed on a roll-up as a blonde lady in white trousers tried to keep Blaise and Octavia out of the puddles. All walks of life united by one thing: chickens.

Read the rest...

This one's beyond explanation - but that's never stopped us before.

Probably worth watching through to the end. Did you notice the rabbit?

Great news, friends, those crazy scientists have discovered a new type of cloud! Actually, it's not even scientists but some well-meaning amateur who's formed the Cloud Appreciation Society. News outlets all over the world have eagerly fixed on what could possibly be classed as a bit of good news - or at least not obviously bad anyway.

The Telegraph explains:

Experts at the Royal Meteorological Society are now attempting to have the new cloud type, which has been named "Asperatus" after the Latin word for rough, officially added to the international nomenclature scheme used by forecasters to identify clouds. If successful, it will be the first variety of cloud to be classified since 1953.

Well good for them. I'll bet those boffins at the Royal Meteorological Society were delighted when the Cloud Appreciation Society chap floated past, putting them in the media spotlight for a moment or two.

Read the rest...

By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

For the Wildlife Gardener, one of the pleasures of summer evenings is watching bats zoom and wheel around at dusk:

A bit blurry, but not easy to photograph bats in the dark with a compact camera!

Bats are enchanting creatures, and are the only mammals that can truly fly. I like them as much as I like birds. My birds have nest boxes put up for them, so in the interests of equality, I decide that the bats should have bat boxes. Little did I realise that there are lots of different boxes out there to choose from...or we could make one ourselves. Up to our eyes in DIY projects, I chose not to burden Mr WG with another carpentry task, so I took a look at the items on offer.

Read the rest...

This weekend The Ranger discovered that the biggest fly in the UK was much bigger than he'd previously thought. Yes, we heard you wanted to see a picture of a simply gigantic horsefly. So here it is.

This is Tabanus sudeticus, sometimes called the dark giant horsefly. It seems, oddly enough, that this impressive insect has not really got a commonly-accepted English name. It's referred to in one place as the "dark behemothic horsefly": a charmingly descriptive name, albeit a little cumbersome.

Read the rest...

By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

The Wildlife Gardener has always rather liked goats. They are calm, friendly, hardy, with a bit of an attitude. Some are bred to produce tasty milk which means even tastier cheese; others produce hairy wool to make itchy jumpers. All goats produce cashmere: you just have to comb them. They are intelligent (able to undo zips and shoelaces), playful (happy to skip around chasing human kids) and affectionate (will sit on your lap given the chance).

So when la famille Wildlife Gardener had a chance to stay in a holiday cottage on a Cumbrian hill farm with 250 Herdwick sheep and a herd of 14 dairy goats owned by two old university friends, Adrian and Margie, we packed up the WGmobile and headed for the hills.

Read the rest...