My garden and fields are my number one birding places, in my past I was a sheep farmer and I had a wonderful small flock of Ryland sheep but when they got out they would eat everything, even the bark of the trees. It was amazing how high they could jump, they got wise to the fact I didn't use barbed wire. After the foot and mouth outbreak of which the Lleyn Peninsula was very lucky to escape, the paperwork was terrible and my Dad and I decided it was not worth keeping them. I hated the sheep markets, selling them was heartbreaking, a bit of an old softy I am.
I then decided growing flowers and grasses for drying and then doing dried flowers baskets, it was a great idea and the first year it was a huge success and the second year the weather was terrible and the whole lot got blight. During the winter when the grasses were by then dried on the stems, Blackcaps were coming in to feed on the seeds, as were Goldfinches, all sorts in fact.
We them had to decide what to do with 6 acres of land, which was once an investment but when the grass grows, either buy stock for grazing or cut it for hay. At the back of the house it was one acre, so we decided to plant trees, Dad wanted apple trees, I wanted trees that produced berries for the birds. What would I do with tons of apples, so we compromised and we planted 6 apple trees, 1 plum, and for the wildlife 12 Alders, 6 Rowans, 20 Alder Buckthorn ( for the Brimstone butterflies) , and wildflowers like Bird's foot Trevoil, Red Clover and a few others which failed.
That was around 2008 and all went well until after I lost Dad in 2010 and went to my sister for Christmas, when I got home someone had cut most of the trees down, less said about who and why but I always had my thoughts about, who!!!
Since then those trees that were cut down most of them grew again and produced three smaller trunks and this year the Rowens have berries and the Alders are huge and bursting with Alder cones, one unfortunately is heading for the BT wires and I will have to top it.
Its my plantation and with the village pond just over the fence water is provided for all the wildlife visiting the field. Right at the very top of the field is a rough area, Bracken is a problem and the Brambles have to be strimmed down but somewhere in the middle of it are a pair of Common Whitethroats which have for the second year reared a family, as have Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers. The youngsters have all fledged and I have seen them around the trees.
