Peregrine news...

So our parent peregrines had a baby! Just the one, but one nonetheless.  My mum watched (she's a few doors down from us) as the baby came out of his nest and sat on our pylon the first time.  He has now fledged and does a bit of flying, what a legend he is!

He returns (we think he returns - he could still be sleeping here) every morning and his parents come back and feed him, yesterday he spent nearly all day here trying out different levels of the pylon and it is just brilliant.  He even found his way into my nephews homework, with what he'd seen in the garden at Nanny's!

Mum has been in touch with some peregrine watching/community/action type group from London and they gave passed on mums contact details to the Hampshire division with whim mum has now spoken.  We think Our peregrines aren't a young couple as we once thought, apparently 'pylon birds' usually only raise one baby, maybe because of the space? Who knows. But nest boxes and other environments are more conducive to larger numbers of chicks.  They think our pair are a pair that had already been identified, but had gone missing this year. They usually nest on a pylon a few pylons over, but this year have gone for a ours, lucky us! 😊

It's so lovely to have them here, not least because they are keeping the awful, noisy Rooks away, it's so lovely to see them.  They are relatively rare, there are only 1500 breeding pairs left in the UK and at one point were close to extinction.  They share the same status protection as the giant panda and tiger - how cool is that!

If you want to have a read and learn more, here is a link to the RSPB.... http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/p/peregrine/index.aspx 

Anyway, here's a few pics from yesterday.

TTFN xxx

Welcome to my garden!

Well the last few years I've flirted with gardening, but it's no big secret that my fingers aren't as green as I think they should be! When Nan was here, we spent every Saturday going to a garden centre, it did involve tea and cake too, but we also spent time planning our gardens, buying things to plant and finding unusual things to look at.

We are very lucky, our garden us massive! We have a pylon in our garden (well 3 legs) and lots and lots of space. Over the years I've mainly grown veggies and a few flowers here and there and I even have two raised beds now!

A very unsunny picture!

The year Nan died, I did nothing with our garden at all, I wasn't enamoured by it and didn't want to spend any time out there. But last year, I relented a little, did a couple of hanging baskets and planted some strawberries.

This year I've grown some bits from seed, courgettes, squash and cucumber. Sown some carrots, parsnips and beetroot seeds, and planted a few flowers here and there. 

Strawberries in the bed (that needs a bit of DIY!), beetroot in the whiskey barrel and a courgette in the pot.

Lettuce in the window basket, some courgettes in the tray and flowers in the head!

Some cucumbers by the greenhouse.

Some flowers by the water butt!

I've not done any baskets this year, but I have managed to plant all my shrubs, to hide the wheelie bins (front garden) in the ground rather than them languishing in their pots, with the help of my lovely mum.

Half way through....

The finished article! 

I've managed to keep these plants alive for a few years now! The evergreen was a tiny 6 inch tall tree when I bought it!

Although the best thing about my garden currently is these.... 

We have a breeding pair of peregrine falcons on our pylon! They have babies and everything! 

We are becoming very boring about our birds (now named Fred and Wilma), we've been learning loads about them and have discovered there's only 1500 breeding pairs left in the UK.  We have our eyes trained on the pylon at all times and even mum and dad from their house have their binoculars trained on our pylon!  We are all self confessed twitchers!

We can't wait to see the babies fledge and are so pleased they have picked our pylon to nest in!

I'll keep you posted!

TTFN, Sammy xx