Actually not all the leaves are brown, but they're not far off it. My garden birds don't seem too perturbed so I'm taking their lack of interest in my seed feeders as evidence that they don't yet think the tim'e right to fatten up ready for the cold, dark winter. I'm putting the leaf-fall down to the drier than average summer rather than an early autumn.
I've done all those annual maintenance jobs, like cleaning out the nest boxes, so I'm feeling smug. What's just immedaitely added to this feeling of smugness is the sight of a jay gliding in to view. It's now calling from it's perch on a hawthorn bush next door. I saw a pair of them in Islington just the other week behind Highbury and Islington tube station in Laycock Street. Our Make Your Nature Count results show jays are surprisingly common in Greater London. They were recorded in 15% of gardens surveyed, putting them in 18th place.
What disapointed me was the small number of hedgehog sightings. I was hoping these prickly little fella's might be more common. I'd love to have one visit my garden, if only to help keep slugs down. Instead, I'll have to rely on thrushes and blackbirds. Only 6% of London gardens can boast hedgehogs, compared with a UK average of 25%. There are simple things you can do to attract more wildlife to your garden, visit our Homes for Wildlife pages for FREE advice.
Feed the Birds is our next big mission. Running over the weekend of 24 and 25 October we're looking for public support to grow more food for birds. Topping up feeders really helps, but fresh food plucked from the vine, bush, tree or ground is better. We've five top tips that will help on our Feed the Birds webpages.
I thought I had done something wrong when I saw that the birds were ignoring the seed I put out. Glad I'm not the only one whose birds are not very interested. However, they are demolishing the suet balls.
The house sparrows have enlarged their family this year - it's only a small garden, but I counted over a dozen of them in the lilac tree. And the robin paid his first visit of the "winter" yesterday.
Blackbirds don't eat my slugs! Mine wait for me to dig up worms. Have you tried a toad? Since my two arrived all the small slugs have gone. I put the big slugs into the compost bin - they seem to have gone by the time the compost is ready for use.
Reminds me - any tips for getting rid of a large thriving ant nest in a compost bin?