Watch the birdie

Some of you might have seen me and Chris in the article in the Newcastle Journal on Saturday, pictured next to our new pond at our newly planted nature reserve.  I put a link there from our Facebook page too, so if you follow us you may already have seen and read all about this.

Its great to have some publicity for our new venture and many thanks to Angela who took the photos, and had her photo taken by me (pictured here) and Keith who wrote the article. The pictures were taken on a rather blustery day, and we had to abandon the pickup as the route was so wet and walk rather a long way so rather than thinking I’d look windswept and rather like a Barbour advert, instead I look short and rather bedraggled!

The area is coming on so well, we have ordered more trees for a small area that we left unplanted last year but have decided that it needs more cover so 500 more trees are on order, rowan, willow and oak plus more species I can’t remember.  The ones we planted last year are getting well established and the wildlife and birdlife we have seen already is wonderful. This Summer it was the first place I heard a skylark, a sound that will stay with me forever.

We have had various group in touch with us regarding visiting the site which will be most definitely available for photography groups etc in the coming months.  Chris will be organising hides for this purpose, deciding where best to site them and then we hope to welcome people on organised and supervised visits, to see and hopefully photograph our wildlife & birdlife, and enjoy the surroundings.

We’re not busy in the fields at the moment as the wet weather has decimated the whole cropped areas, so we will have to wait until Spring to re-assess fields and our cropping situation, but there’s always lots to do, making our Bird foods, delivering  them, plus farm and machinery maintenance and seeing to livestock so we’re always rather busy and will be looking forward to a couple of days off at Christmas.

The birds in our garden have been enjoying the high energy foods to keep them warm in these colder temperatures, I’ve been putting out fat balls and suet blocks as well as our wild bird foods and some sunflower hearts as a treat on my bird table. The bullfinches seem to love them, as do the lovely resident blue tits and my faithful little robin who always visits the feeders at this time of year.

Please remember to feed the birds, especially at this time of year, when hedgerow foods are sparse and the hours of daylight are so short, its really appreciated, the birds visiting our garden feeders and bird table have increased significantly in numbers but to watch them is a real pleasure.

https://www.laverockhallfarm.co.uk/wild-bird-food/high-energy-wild-bird-food-12-55kg-detail