My garden in Huntingdonshire

We came to live here four years ago, partly attracted by the acre of garden that provides endless interest with its variety of wildlife. The early discovery of 100 pipistrelle bats in the roof confirmed we had bought the right house and I have now recorded 54 bird species in the BTO Garden Birdwatch Survey. My gardening strategy is to increase the variety of plants that offer nectar to butterflies and bees and fruit to birds (and squirrels). Turning half the lawn into a "wildflower meadow" is an excuse to reduce the chore of mowing.   

There are large mature gardens on two sides, arable fields to the south and a common that lead to the river Great Ouse and a gravel pit  nature reserve on the west. However, the neighbourhood  is not quite so rural as it looks. We are sandwiched between the expanding towns of Huntingdon and St. Ives and the busy, and often stationary, A14 is on the skyline. 

Our living rooms are on the first floor so we look out over fields of winter barley. It sounds boring but there are grandstand views of foxes, hares and rabbits, and, in winter, flocks of geese, lapwings and golden plovers. Herons commute past between their heronry and the gravel pits and water meadows.

There were once two Lombardy poplars to the right of the bare ash. The second fell down recently so I had the chance to examine the old woodpecker nest at the top.  A pair of stock doves live in the ash tree but they won't use the nestbox, perhaps because of the squirrels. Starlings use the box on the remains of the poplar.

My new pond has been colonised by smooth newts and dragonflies. Birds come to drink and bathe. And a kingfisher once perched on the sundial.

Feeders dispensing seeds and peanuts are vital for bringing birds into the garden. Longtailed tits, jays, bramblings, siskins, rarely a nuthatch, and occasionally a rose-ringed parakeet - an escaped cagebird that now breeds in parts of the south-east.

You can just see a juvenile woodpecker waiting on the horizontal beam while its mother hacks out peanuts from under the feeder.

This is a nestbox for wrens.

There is plenty of room inside for a nest!

These are some Nature Notes based on My Garden: