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| Achillwriter.com |
Wednesday, 20th June 2007 The siskins have appeared on our feeders in the last couple of weeks, bright, slender birds, yellow-green in colour, the males particularly handsome with their black crowns. We have noticed a juvenile dog-fox frequently crossing the hill at the back of the cottage, in the daytime, recently. We have known him since last year when we watched him playing and dozing with his siblings and parents. Luckily for us he seems to keep his distance - our hens and ducks free-range in our land from early morning to evening. On one occasion, our local hooded crows were harrying our resident sparrow hawk who had just procured a small bird for lunch. Maythered, he dropped the bird from his grasp. Before either himself or the crows could retrieve it, the adolescent fox (mentioned above), jumping and twisting, caught the bird in his mouth while airborne. Then, much to the annoyance of the crows and hawk, he beat a hasty retreat into dense undergrowth. All this within 5 yards of the cottage and boundary fence! Over the past few weeks our attention has been focussed on a chalet we are having built on the site of the old house. It will be somewhere we can both write and paint, as well as accomodation for visitors when needed. Saturday, 1st June 2007 Spring has come and gone, slipping seamlessly into Summer. The swallows arrived earlier than usual - in late March. The cuckoo also returned early - we heard the first unmistakable heart-lifting call across Achill Sound on 24th April. Here, their preference is meadow pipits to act as surrogate parents. For a few weeks, from late April, the district is hardly ever without them, calling both night and day. In early May the Willow warblers arrived with their beautiful song, along with the Grasshopper warblers with their fishing-reel-like call continuing for minutes on end deep among undergrowth. Now, there are groups of fledged young birds appearing, like the party of eight great tits learning to hunt food and fly that I saw moving through the garden early this morning, urged on by their anxious parents. Sunday, 11th March 2007 Spring continues to unfold here despite plenty of gales and rain. The frogspawn has been temporarily housed in a bucket due to the heavy rainfall. We hope to dig a good-sized pond at the back of the cottage in early summer, so that will be where the tadpoles hatch in May. The alder catkins, pussy willow, and gorse bloom are a picture just now. Saturday, 3rd March 2007 On Thursday we spotted our first bumble-bee of the year - seeking nectar from the early primrose flowers and daffodils. The last two nights have been quite clear with a big full moon shining; the frogs have been singing and croaking in the drain - more and more frog-spawn is appearing. The pussy willow is making a great show of lovely silver-cream studded rods. We have a wild variety that always puts on a show earlier than our other varieties. Our local hooded crows have been courting and reinforcing their nest in the flat top of the big old Scots pine across the river from us. They have nested in it every year but two since we moved here. A few days ago, they spent hours cawing and flying up into the air above the nest, swooping down and up high again. It was as though they were celebrating spring. I must confess I haven't observed this behaviour before. Today they are collecting soft material for the lining where the eggs will be laid - mostly sheep's wool. Saturday, 24th February 2007 As the weather improves the wild birds here are beginning to pair up. We have a few blackbird couples that are out foraging on the lawn early each morning. If the sun comes out Great tits begin calling from high in the alder copse beside us; they are already staking out their territory. We are hoping to place a few more nest boxes this year. Must get a move on! We leave out a variety of bird food; mixed seed, pea-nuts and fat blocks, and this must factor in when they are determining where to raise a family. We hang the feeders from our willow bushes where the robins; chaffinches; green finches; coal tits; blue tits; great tits; reed buntings; blackbirds; and dunnocks can help themselves. Earlier in winter, in cold weather, we had the siskins and goldfinches visiting them. Regrettably, we didn't attract any redpolls this year. Last year they were prolific. Two years ago, in early winter, during a cold snap, we had 17 waxwing visitors who cleared our rowan trees of bright orange berries. Usually it is the fieldfares or redwings. Our first daffodils - a double early, "Van Sion", that is almost naturalised here on the island - have been flowering about a week now along with the miniature "Tete-a-tete", - a picture with the wide-open, lilac, crocus tomasinius. Narcissus "February Gold" is just opening. Deep maroon hellebores are in flower, and the siver-leaved cyclamen coum under the fuchsia hedge have a good showing of palest pink blooms. Monday, 26th February Frogspawn has appeared overnight, in a flooded section of one of our land drains - and more in one of our miniature patio ponds! Keen to ensure it hatches, we have protected it from being slurped by the ducks with some strategic positioning of plant pots. Frogs wake from their winter hibernation in February. They quickly return to ponds and drains and spawning usually occurs in March and April. A female can lay as many as 2-3,000 eggs which are fertilised by the male. They disperse again after spawning. The tadpoles hatch at the end of May. In mid-July the mini-frogs leave the water, maturing into adult frogs in three years. The first pale lemon primroses and china blue, starry, periwinkle flowers, are open for early insects and bees in the borders on the more sheltered, east-facing, front of the cottage. |
| Frogspawn |
| Monday, 12th May 2008 Just now, the island is particularly lovely. There is a riot of colour from flowering wild shrubs; swathes of saffron-coloured, incense- scented gorse, which complements so well the various purple shades of rhododendron ponticum just coming into its own. The cuckoos have arrived back. Eileen first heard one on May 5th. Since then we have seen a male, (I suspect the same one), on a number of occasions, calling from the alder copse beside us; and from our boundary fence-posts at the back which border moorland rich in meadow pipits - one of the cuckoo's favoured hosts. Of course, it is only the male that makes the famous two-note "cu - koo" call, so loved by everyone as a harbinger of summer, the brownish female having a low warbling song. They also have a number of guttural coughing noises. They will be with us until July. Last night we lost sleep through him. "He's back", Eileen said conspiratorially the other evening, unable to hide her excitement. There were two possibilities. Creeping outside with her, she encouraged me to listen. I confessed I could not hear him; nor was I certain which him she meant - was it the sedge-warbler who the poet Seamus Heaney rightly describes as the Irish nightingale in his poem "Serenades", describing it as a "a little bird with a big voice/ kicking up a racket all night" I could make out its rather lovely short bursts of warbles. But this was not the bird she wanted me to listen for. It was another of our familiar summer visitors; back from Africa - like the swallow, cuckoo, willow warbler."There he is!" she exclaimed, and I could just make out his high continuous, wavering song, like a fishing reel or a cricket. The Grasshopper warbler was back again! Another piece of the summer jigsaw picture had slipped into place. Over the years here we have tried to encourage bio-diversity of insect, animal, bird and plant life. We have planted willows from seedlings that have blown in, as well as alders and rowan. We have planted bulrush and marsh marigold and flag-iris in the drains and boggy areas. For the past seven years, after noticing the beauty of flowering grasses and the diversity of butterflies and other insect life they attract, I have hung up my strimmer. Besides the hens and ducks love grass-seed and dock-seed - and we like daisies and thistles. So, it is a matter of making space for the thousands of other life-forms that this garden is home to. Sprays and chemicals have no part in our armoury. More birds visit the garden now to feed and to nest. We have controlled a lot of our vegetable pests and diseases through - careful crop rotation; using disease-resistant varieties (as well as growing those most suited to organic growing); feeding only with organic poultry manure; not digging; covering crops with bio-fleece for added warmth/shelter (as well as keeping out many pests); and using raised beds. These growing methods have increased our yields by 300 per cent or more. Sunday, 17th February, 2008 I came across a common lizard today at the back of the cottage. It being a mild, sunny day, it must have been basking but fled across my path when I disturbed it on approach. Apparently, they are fairly well distributed throughout Ireland but I know people here native to Achill who have never seen one. Monday, 28th January, 2008 It has been a wet winter here, though we are aware many places have had worse weather than ourselves. The garden has withstood it well, and the shrubs we planted 18 months ago have established successfully; as they are mostly evergreens - (holly; New Zealand flax; daisy bushes; griselinia; hebes ) - they have provided valuable cover for birds during both rain and storm. The local sparrow-hawk has made our bird-feeding area, where there are usually greenfinch, chaffinch, and various members of the tit-mouse family, his regular larder. We have watched him come gliding silently along river's course, then make a 90 degree turn to skim over our cattle gate, then, graceful as a ballerina, and with outstretched wings, perform a perfect loop round the willow bush holding the peanut feeder. Not a single wing flap. Artistry in motion. Every one in three attempts he captures his startled prey who sometimes don't know anything until they are grasped in his talons. The female also visits; larger slightly, same wondrous skill in flight. Our time last year was mostly taken up with the new chalet, built on the ruins of the old, original house. We have named it "Fuchsia chalet". Eileen will use to pick up her oil-painting again. I shall use it as a writing retreat. Of course, being self-contained and fitted out, our guests/visitors will make good use of it; Andrew, our son, and Michael Mark Thomas, our grandson, may be the first to use it when they visit in summer 2007 was a good year for frogs - dozens of froglets hopped off to our drains in July/August. We have to make that pond this year! I disturbed a toad this week under some plastic sheeting - he must have been using it to shelter and had a good supply of slugs to eat. He quickly crawled away towards some old bracken. During summer we were delighted to come across some elephant hawk moths. We had purposely let some rosebay willowherb increase for this purpose - they are one of the caterpillar's foodplants - along with fuchsia magellanica which are traditionally used for a colourful flowering hedge here in the west of Ireland. We hadn't seen any in a few years. This following is taken directly from a journal entry I made: ......this elephant hawk moth caterpillar who I pick gently from the rosebay willowherb rears up between my finger and thumb, wagging his head alarmingly from side to side. He resembles an angry cigar butt with two eyes, which he inflates now retracting his head to look more fearsome. If I were a hungry bird it could dissuade me. He sees me; perceiving no threat he stops. I carefully place him back on his food plant, happy to have made his acquaintance. I know what a beautiful adult velvety moth in pinks and browns he will hatch into; but first he must pupate in the plant litter through the coming cold season. Perhaps I shall see him next June in his hovering flight feeding from the wild honeysuckle blooms at dusk. I hope so. The world is big enough form all of us if we look out for one another. |
