Winter may be here but life goes on in the garden!

Well as winter is pretty much upon us, a lot of the plants have died back in the garden, revealing hidden plants we forgot we had.
We have avoided clearing the seed heads of a lot of plants to leave food for the birds, but we have also filled our feeders up with seed too. In the last month we have had a range of tits and finches in the garden, with one of my favourites being the Greenfinch. If the light is right, you get a sudden green flash shoot across the garden, really nice as the rest of the colour starts disappearing!

I recently walked around the small wooded area at the end of our road and watched Gold crests jumping around the trees chirping away. We had one on our feeder when we first moved in to our house and hopefully we might see some more this year!

This time of year you still get to see a few things around the garden and my attention this year has turned to the Vapour moths thats seem to do well. Over the last few years we have had them in the front and back garden as larvae and even found the flightless female with eggs as shown below:

I have taken note of their food plants, which include Lady's Mantle and Dock leaf, and have introduced more around the garden. Hopefully this will help them over the next few years. Its a real privilege to have them to look at!

Another thing we have plenty of in the garden are furry caterpillars. Sadly not the Garden Tiger moth, a favourite from my childhood, but instead Ruby Tiger moths and Ermines. I'm not complaining though its a nice replacement, but worrying for the Garden Tiger moth that used to be a very common sight, but seems rare now!

Tristan Bawn

Wallflower made a huge difference!

Last year we planted an Everlasting Wallflower in the garden as advised by many of the wildlife sites online. It's a lovely purple flower that really is everlasting, from the earliest sunny spring day until Christmas time!

Little did we know when we planted it how many butterflies, beetles, flies and bees it would attract in to the garden! Particularly on the warm, still summer days, the flowers were swarming with insects, with some of the favourites being the huge number of Tortoiseshells, Whites and Peacocks!

A great result and the whole family have enjoyed watching the butterflies flittering and dancing around the garden.

For more information on the best range of plants for attracting these pollenating insects check out the following guide:
Butterfly Conservation 

Proof that if you plant the right flowers the insects will come!

Hummingbird Hawk Moth!

As a family we all enjoy looking in our moth trap in the morning. You never really know what you might find as you delve in to it. 

One moth that you won't see in the trap is a Hummingbird Hawk moth, so we thought we were unlikely to ever see one. 

A few years back we were given a Verbena Bonariensis, a hardy perennial, which produces tall stems with a head of small purple flowers. Not only are these nice to look at, they are great at attracting butterflies and moths. 

A few days back whilst have a little wander around the garden, I spotted something shooting and whizzing around the garden, it was Hummingbird hawk moth! 

I called the family over and even had time to take a few pictures, although the wings beat so fast it was hard to get a decent picture! 

The closest thing you are ever likely to see to a humming bird in the UK.

Amazing to see, and a great result from our targeted planting idea. Put the correct plants in and things will make their own way in! 

Tristan Bawn

As part of out plan, we decided to let the grass grow long down the bottom of our garden to see what benefited from it. We were quite amazed to see a Common Blue and a Brown Argus basking in the sunshine! 

They seemed to arrive early evening, just right for when the sun came across on to the long grass. 

We have had quite a few butterflies in the garden this year, but these have really topped it off for us this year! 

More on the other butterflies, including our butterfly count to be added soon.

Tristan

Common Blue

Brown Argus

Welcome to Our Wildlife Garden Journey!
We are a family of four, Tristan, Vicky and kids, Kaelan 3 1/2, Luna 7 months, and we live in a small village on the outskirts of Bristol.  When we moved into our new home in 2011, we decided to try and welcome wildlife to our garden by making our garden as wildlife friendly as possible, as well as being a usable garden for the kids and growing some vegetables.  A bit of a balance, with successes and failures, and loads learnt!

Our aim for this blog is to share our successes and failures and any tips we have picked up and discovered along the way, with the hope that we may pick up a few more tips from you!  Perhaps we can inspire someone, or be inspired by someone else along the journey, but most of all to enjoy the amazing wildlife the UK has to offer!

We are continually being surprised by what turns up in our garden, one of our favourites being a little rabbit who spent 4 months keeping the grass down!