Seagull vs Crow and other birds

Nobody likes seagulls. In general they are loud, bold, intelligent, omnivorous, ubiquitous... and they do, I must admit, tend to make a nuisance of themselves in urban settings. Circumstances being what they are in the modern world, however, one can hardly blame the gulls for utilising the roofs of houses for look-out posts now that there are very few unoccupied cliffs.

Round here there are almost always rows of gulls perched on the rooftops, mostly blackheaded gulls with a few larger herring gulls among them. Early this morning - beautifully clear and dry but very cold - I watched as a whole row or eleven or twelve gulls were evicted from their rooftop by one single crow. It squawked, chased and chivvied them, not hesitating to nip at the tail feathers of the slowest to move, until, satisfied that it had the whole terrace of houses to itself, it perched on top of the highest TV aerial in sight and preened itself, croaking gently in pride in a job well done. Many times I've watched birds being mobbed by other species of birds, for all sorts of reasons, but never before have I seen a whole flock routed by one individual, slightly smaller if anything, bird.

The cold weather is making the sparrows much bolder, too. They are getting through a fat ball every two or three days, and they no longer move when anyone walks up or down the steps by the fence. All the birds visiting the garden seem less shy, but it's probably just that they are hungrier. The jackdaws who clamber over the roofs acting as moss removers have also removed all the moss I carefully planted round the edge of my precious pond. I shan't replace it now until the spring...

When it rains, the pond fills...

It's two weeks and two days since I started digging the pond. Twelve days ago I poured in a bucketful of stored rain water and left it more or less to its own devices. We haven't actually had 12 inches of rain in the last fortnight, as I've been collecting water in containers and adding that as well, but still it's been quick!
I didn't put the pond liner in quite level. I wanted a mini marsh at one end and I've had to wait for it to overflow before I could be sure of building it in the right place. This morning it was ready, so I built ramparts of the slate I mined and filled it with compost and moss so that it slopes nicely down into the water. Hopefully now the level will rise that final couple of inches.
Less than half an hour later I watched a dozen sparrows go from the seed feeders down to my new marshy pond margin and drink! If they like it hopefully so will other creatures. I did actually see a big adult frog within a hundred metres of my pond one day last week when I was picking blackberries just after a heavy shower. It was crossing the lane and going into the coombe, but at least it shows they are about.
I've now got three types of weed - some feathery plants from Roger's pond which are anchored to the bottom, mini floating plants which also came from Roger's by mistake and a big handful (85p) of proper oxygenating duckweed from the aquatics shop at Carkeel. I've stuck some more bits of ground cover plants at the back by the wall, as well. Viewed from above I feel that it does now actually look as if it is a permanent feature of the garden. There's something very satisfying about landscaping, even on this miniature scale. I find myself looking around for the next project...

Sunday, Saints Way...

A sunny Sunday stroll along the Saints Way. That's what we'd planned, anyway, but the day dawned cloudy and the clouds rapidly came down to ground level, where they stayed for most of the seven mile circular walk starting and finishing at the Crown, Lanlivery, and taking in bits of the Saints Way. When the rain clouds lifted slightly we found ourselves walking through clouds of butterflies instead!
It was lucky, in a way, that it was raining when we set out, as the wet weather gear gave us some protection from the totally overgrown public footpath that started the walk. The usual summer walking shorts and sandals would have been quite inadequate, and a machete would have been nice. The second section, also public footpath, wasn't much better; it wasn't particularly well marked and involved stepping over a section of electrified fence which was just lying on the wet ground. Two of the dogs didn't quite manage to miss the wire and found it quite distressing. Two fields further up the hill we met the farmer on his quad bike, who found our exaggerated respect for his electric fences quite amusing - he said they weren't on. When we told him about the bit at the bottom he went racing off to put it right, blaming other walkers for knocking it down, which is probably right.
Through Luxulyan, which has some very old and attractive houses and gardens, then on to the Saints Way proper along another short but very overgrown stretch of path. This part of the path goes through green and secret mossy woods along a disconcerting stream - it seems that you are walking down hill but the stream flows the other way. Then up and up, through a bit of a nature reserve to Helman Tor (which we skirted round) and along a green lane full of butterflies and back down to Lanlivery for lunch at the Crown.
I spent almost the entire walk with wet feet, so I'll need to look for new boots before the rainy season proper sets in. On the other hand, the Peter Storm waterproof overtrousers I found for a pound in a charity shop worked jolly well on their first outing.
Today, Monday, it really is sunny, which is nice. My new pond is almost two inches deeper than it was yesterday, which is even nicer...

We dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig...

This is my new pond. It is quite small, although it's as big as it possibly can be given the size of my gravel patch, and has cost an inordinate amount of effort.

I've been wanting a pond ever since my first attempt at landscaping - the rockery - two years ago, and experimented with a miniature water feature (old roasting tin recessed into the gravel, pretty stones and a couple of ferns round it) but wasn't content with that and have been looking for a nice small deep preformed pond for ages. Finally found one on the internet, it came last Tuesday and I've been digging more or less ever since.

I knew that there was heavy duty plastic under the gravel, and that under that there was red clay, because I got down that far when siting the compost bin, but what I didn't realise that under a couple of inches of clay there was solid slate. Should have done really, in hindsight, there's slate everywhere else... What's worse, about three inches down alongside the wall where I started digging there was also quite a thick layer of concrete extending about a foot from the edge. With my little trowel and Ron's entrenching tool I made quite good progress for the first eight inches or so down from the surface as the slate was fairly loose but the last few inches (pond is just over a foot deep) was really, really, hard. And I couldn't do anything about the concrete at all - it's got a lot of granite in it and was causing sparks to fly every time I hit it feebly with the digger. Ron sorted it, though. In about ten minutes with the big sledgehammer then the small sledgehammer and a big chisel he made more hole than I had in two days, and left me with just the finishing off.

It's in now, bedded in with nice soft compost, ferns replaced and a few muscari bulbs and other bits stuck in here and there. Almost empty still, of course; I keep looking out at the clouds and hoping it will rain. I've got lots of buckets and bowls strategically placed to catch as much water as possible, as well.

I want it to be a proper wildlife pond, and internet research suggests that the very best way to do this is to leave it to be colonised naturally - just fill with rainwater and wait for stuff to arrive. I don't think I have quite that long to live, though, so I may have to help it a bit. Come the spring I shall probably be stealing frogspawn from somewhere...