However, slowly they started to arrive, with a couple of house sparrows and a pair of great tits being the next guests.  Then pandemonium – more house sparrows, only this time there were about 10 (I definitely counted this number, but it could have been more).  They were hurtling about the garden , making lots of noise, then they careened into next door’s conifer and then they were gone.

Most of the usual suspects were about; a couple of dunnocks and two robins as well as another couple of blue tits (all there at once which is unusual as they usually chase each other off).  But, no finches for quite some time until a couple of goldfinches turned up.  Then some more and finally I counted 8 at once. I love these, they are so bright and noisy, they enliven any garden.

So, total species count was only 7 this year.  I was not surprised by the lack of starlings as they don’t often come into the garden, they just make lots of noise in the roof, and the cage I have put round the bird feeder has deterred the wood pigeons and collared doves this winter.  The greenfinches didn’t arrive until late morning and I have no idea what happened to the chaffinches on Saturday.  However, the thing I am a little concerned about is that I only saw the one male blackbird, no others, male or female.  I haven’t seen more than one since either, so I am not sure what has happened to his mate as they were often in the garden together.

So, why is the Big Garden Birdwatch important? Each year it provides a snapshot of the status of the more common birds that we see every day (and some not so common birds) and, because so many people take part it gives a good average for the UK as a whole. Over the years it has highlighted the reduction in common birds such as house sparrows and starlings, which, although spotted by a large proportion of the public are not around in the same numbers as they used to be.
It also highlights when different bird species start visiting gardens in bigger numbers. One year may be an anomaly, several years establishes a trend. Recent increases have been seen from long-tailed tits, bullfinches and goldfinches, mainly due to the increase in bird food types offered by those feeding the birds.
A third reason that the birdwatch is important is that it has highlighted changes in migration patterns such as blackcaps which rarely overwintered a few years ago, but are now regularly spotted in gardens in Winter (in fact I have had one visiting my birdfeeders every year for three years).

The top five birds seen last year were House Sparrow, Starling, Blackbird, Blue Tit and Chaffinch, although there were some unusual sightings including ravens, buzzards and red kites. Not unexpectedly the top five were similar in Northamptonshire, but with Woodpigeons pipping the Chaffinches for fifth spot. What I find interesting about the results is that there are some birds such as robins and blackbirds which were spotted in high percentages of gardens, even if the average number per garden was not very high (also possibly hindered in some cases by an inability to tell the males and females apart).

So, how do you take part? Simple. Choose one hour this weekend (28th / 29th January), I find mornings are normally better for bird activity, write a list of the birds that you are likely to see (include a line for male and females if you can tell them apart) settle back and count the birds that come into your garden. Be careful not to count them twice, only count the maximum number that you can see at any one time. Then, submit your sightings online at www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatchresults . You can also find a useful guide to help you identify birds on their website.

So, happy birdwatching and thank you for taking part in a wildlife survey.

So, why am I so interested in these birds?  It is not just their weather-forecasting abilities that I like about them.  They really are stunning birds, particularly if they catch the Winter sun.   They are quite a large bird, not really looking like a duck.  They swim low in the water, being very pointy with a thin red bill, which gives their group its name – Sawbills.  The serrated inner edge allows them to grip slippery fish, which they search for by swimming with their head under water before diving down with a jump to get them.  (Amazing fact number one – they can dive for up to 45 seconds.)

The duck and drake look quite different.  Whilst the duck is grey with a chestnut coloured head with a shaggy crest, the drake is much sleeker.  He has a bottle green head which looks black unless it catches the sun, some black on his back, but the rest is mainly white (with a hint of pink!).

Whilst these are not the rarest of birds, in fact their numbers are increasing (there are about 2,600 breeding pairs, numbers tripling in Winter to about 16,100 birds) they do face a threat from the owners of fisheries due to their particular love of salmon and trout.  (Amazing fact number two – a young goosander eats 33kg of fish in order to reach adulthood.)

Whilst researching this article, I also discovered amazing fact number three (well, puzzling fact really) – after breeding most of the male goosanders from Europe migrate to the north of Norway to moult – I have no idea why they do that.  The females stay put – I am not sure if this is due to parental requirements.

So, next time you are in the country park in Winter (the goosanders tend to stick around into February) look out for some very white and black, long, sleek pointy birds.  They tend to sit around in groups, close to the dam, particularly from about halfway up.

To quote from Birds Britannica goosanders ‘spend long periods asleep or loafing on the water and, on a cold, bright Winter’s day there are few more lovely  visions than a group resting in a backwater, their smooth contours and patterns mirrored in the river’s surface.’

Taking the latter question first, a recent change to the waste regulations (2011) states that:

‘ businesses who import or produce, collect, transport, recover or dispose of waste, or who operate as dealers and brokers, must take all reasonable measures to apply the waste hierarchy when the waste is transferred’ (taken from the environment agency website).

The waste hierarchy also has recover and dispose – this means that where possible a company should consider energy recovery through either combustion or anaerobic digestion.  Any waste transfer notes and consignment notes will, from the end of September 2011, include a declaration that the waste hierarchy has been considered in the disposal of the waste.

To me, this poses a question – if I can have my waste collected by two companies, one of which takes any unrecyclable waste to an energy recovery facility and one that sends to landfill, do I have to go with the first company if I am to comply with regulations?  Do I need to check whether there is methane recovery from the landfill?  Does that count in the same way as the energy recovery?  So far, I have not been able to definitively answer that question.  The fact that some companies still send to landfill (and therefore charge the landfill tax and its associated escalator) makes me think that there is a loophole somewhere.  From an economic point of view, my research to date has shown that removing landfill tax by sending product to energy recovery saves a considerable amount of money – by 2014 the cost will be £80 per tonne and most standard skips hold around half a tonne each time they are emptied.  (The rights and wrongs of burning potentially valuable resources is a topic for another blog post.)

One of the other major changes in the regulations doesn’t come into effect for another four years, but concerns the collection of recycling and will affect quite a number of companies.  At the moment companies can salve their conscience and save making too much effort by having what is called Dry Mixed Recycling (DMR).  This means that cardboard, paper, office waste, bottles, cans, plastic etc., can all be put in one container which is later sorted by the waste company (who charge a little more for this as well).  I have also heard of some companies that collect separated waste in one vehicle – thus begging the question as to why separate in the first place.  I have two problems with this practice.  The first is purely practical.  The value and usefulness of these recyclates is lowered because they are contaminated – this is particularly true of the cardboard and paper.  The second is a matter of perception.  If someone has to make more of an effort and think about what they are recycling because they have to consider and separate the different types, does the importance of recycling increase in their mind.

From 2015 anyone who produces paper, glass, plastic or metal waste streams will have to ensure they have taken all practicable steps to ensure they are separated.  This will mean a change in collection facilities for many companies and therefore a change in culture.  My team and I instigated a separated recycling system on one of our sites a few years ago.  We did encounter some resistance at first, but eventually most people did come on board.  The main problems result from lorry drivers throwing anything they can in the recycling skip.

In later posts I will go through some of the things that can be put in place to reduce your waste to landfill as well as taking you along the journey I am starting as I attempt to instigate a waste management practice at work.

This year I have tried to be more organised with regard to my productive garden (as well as my flower garden).  I even tried to think about succession planting for once – I know that anyone with an interest in growing their own should do this as a matter of course, but I am not the most organised person and I leave the planning for my day job (or so I tell myself).

This year’s master plan was to sow some dwarf broad beans (var. Sutton) early in the year and hope to harvest them in June.  The idea being that this would then make room for my French beans in the small bed at the bottom of the garden.  I started them off in February and planted them out at the end of March.  They grew quite well (some in the bed, some in a tub) and flowered a lot – as shown in the photo.  However, the beans themselves seemed to take an age to grow – I harvested some in the middle of the month, but these were in the tub which still remains empty in the vain hope that I can get a courgette to grow and get a late crop; and the bed remained quite full – see picture below.  I finally pulled the rest out last weekend – they were taking over and all of the salad leaves I had planted had gone quite leggy and had mainly been eaten during the damp weather.  I planted out some more French beans as I think the prolific foliage of the broad beans had held some of them back, but I had already planted out my aubergines (new for this year for me), tomatoes and courgettes.  Therefore,  other than the aforementioned beans and some very healthy-looking (i.e. not yet ready to harvest) garlic, I think that it will be some more salad crops for the next month or two in this bed.  The sad thing is that the crop of beans was nothing to shout about – there were on average 3 beans per pod and about 4-8 pods per plant – hardly an abundance.  I have decided to give broad beans a miss next year.

As you can see from the photo of the bed at the bottom of the garden, my mizuna bolted in the warm May sun (as did the rocket), but I got several salads out of them before I pulled them up.  I am not sure if pulling the mizuna up was a cunning plan as it was growing quite well, but was getting leggy.  I have some more in pots amongst the tomatoes and courgettes, and some in modules waiting to replace them, so, for the first year ever I think I have had a modicum of success in the realm of salad leaves.  I know they are supposed to be easy to grow, but I always seem to kill them off – usually by forgetting to water them.

On the positive side the soft fruits are having a better year this year.  Due to some mis-timed pruning last year we had zero blackcurrants – a fact that James is eternally ashamed of.  However, he resisted the temptation to get the secateurs out this year and we were rewarded with about a pound of currants harvested a couple of weeks ago.  This is also the second year that we have had the gooseberry (var. Invicta) in the front garden and it is the second year that it appears to have avoided the attentions of sawfly.  It seems to enjoy the extra sun and warmth of the front of the house, the crop this year (again harvested a couple of weeks ago) was about 3lb – about three times larger than last year.  Not bad considering that when it was in the back garden we never got more than 6 berries!

I have to admit, the drab and dreary weather (it started to rain whilst I was there) did not lessen the dull feel of the gardens, but, here or there were some hidden gems that made me think that underneath the mud and general brown tinge there was a whole host of life just waiting to get out.

There were quite a few hellebores there, but many did not look their best – not sure if it was the early morning frost or if they just needed some TLC – however, not far away were some bright points of blue – I think they are scilla – there were not enough to cover the ground, but they still grabbed my attention.

Whilst I didn’t see much in the way of edibles, the trees in the orchard were full of big, fat buds, and underneath they were planted with iris or daffodils.  The daffodils were just showing some colour, in a couple of weeks they will be amazing.

One thing that I did notice was the amount of bird life there.  They have put bird feeders in every garden.  I am not sure if they have always done this, but there are never any out in the Summer.  As a result, with every step, there was a flurry of activity as a chaffinch or blackbird or unidentifiable small bird zoomed off into the safety of the hedges.  The lack of visitors at this time of year, and the mist and drizzle lent an air of tranquility to the place.  The cacophony of bird song just added to this feeling.  One bird that I used to hear a lot more around Daventry, before they built even more houses, was the yellowhammer, so I was very surprised that to find it in the middle of the gardens.  I think it was just getting its voice back after the Winter, the song was almost there, but the characteristic wheeze at the end was much shortened.

I always like the sensory garden at Ryton – whatever the time of year they always have something flowering, and this weekend was no exception – look at the little cyclamen that I found.  I have planted corms several times in the garden, but whilst I seem to have one or two that will throw up some leaves, I never seem to get any flowers.  (However, my anenome blanda – all of which seem to be blue – have just started to come into flower.)

My biggest surprise of the day also came in the sensory garden – my first bumblebee of the year, foraging on some heather.  This will be a queen going out to gather food before the first of the brood start to hatch.  It just shows the importance of having some early flowering plants in the garden – mahonia and some early flowering honeysuckles are also good for the early bees.  Sorry for the poor quality picture though – I was taken a bit by surprise and she didn’t stay around for long!

So, why a blog post about these creatures?  It is inspired by an article in the excellent, if somewhat scholarly, British Wildlife Magazine.  What I didn’t realise was that there is a colony (or maybe more) of the creatures in Tring (Hertfordshire).  They are also known as the fat dormouse – both names arising from the fact that they were kept as food by the Romans and were even carried in jars by Roman soldiers when on marches.

So, how did they get here?  Well it certainly wasn’t under their own steam as studies on the Tring population have shown that they have really not extended their range very far at all.  As in most cases it was human intervention that has resulted in the UK colonies.  In this case, Lord Rothschild and an ‘accidental’ release at the beginning of the twentieth century.

So, the lowdown on edible dormice:

• They are quite a lot bigger than their native relatives and live for about seven years
• Whereas UK natives are brown, edible dormice are grey and about the size of a small squirrel
• They are nocturnal
• They hibernate underground from about the end of October to May
• They nest in holes in trees and are thought to form creches with the offspring of more than one female found in some nests
• The young aren’t born until July / August which gives them only two or three months to gain enough weight to hibernate
• Their favourite food is Beech mast – in years where it is likely that there will be a poor crop of Beech mast the dormice don’t breed
• It is thought that when there is a poor yield of Beech mast then the dormice are more likely to be found in nearby houses

So, why are they considered a pest?  They do apparently strip bark from trees, however, the main problem with them seems to be the fact that they are often found in houses where they chew through wires and eat food stores.  They are also doing rather well despite their limited range (mainly within 25 miles of Tring) – Natural England estimate that there are at least 10,000 of the animals in the UK.

They were recently listed as one of the top 10 problem invaders alongside mink and grey squirrels.  There are certain methods that can legally be used for ‘dealing’ with these large eyed furry creatures, but it is also an offence to release these animals into the wild now, which is exactly what is thought to be behind their appearance outside of Tring.  People had a problem with them, but couldn’t bring themselves to kill them, so took them far, far away and released them.

But, could you resist those big black eyes and grey coat – perhaps there are things that are too cute to kill?  Still, that argument has never worked for seal pups though, has it?

I thought about going to one of the woods in Northamptonshire that are showing off their carpets of snowdrops, but decided against getting in the car and stayed local instead.

The trees are starting to show signs of life; hints of green, fat buds and pussy willow starting to look furry.  Later on as the air warms these furry grey buds will be a riot of yellow as the male flowers open, providing much needed pollen for insects emerging from hibernation.  The bark of this willow (goat willow salix caprea) contains salicin, which is closely related to the active ingredients in aspirin.

At the country park I found that there were a lot of clumps of snowdrops, but they were only just starting to open and come into flower, and, other than the witch hazel planted near the entrance, most of the colour was provided by the ivy growing up many of the trees.  In my endeavours to try and take some pictures of the witch hazel and snowdrops I think I did annoy a pair of great tits that were checking out the nest box nearby.

The verges around Daventry are littered with crocus, but it is not just the non-natives that are flowering.  I found my first celandine of the year, flowering all alone in the grass on the way to the country park, as well as the occasional daisy and one very early dandelion.  I also came across some chickweed (pictured) and speedwell flowering.  I know that these are weeds and are found pretty much everywhere, but I was surprised to see so many things flowering just a couple of weeks into February.  However, I shouldn’t have been surprised.  A quick search of the internet resulted in the discovery that common chickweed has been known to flower under snow and that they can self pollinate – hence they are found everywhere, all year round and are considered a weed.  How can you fail to be impressed by such a hardy little flower?  They are also edible and contain lots of vitamins and minerals as well as supposedly having numerous medicinal properties.  But the most endearing feature I found when researching this plant is that at night the leaves fold over tender buds and new shoots.  (Information pointing out chickweed’s good points was taken from Alternative Nature Online Herbal, Garden Organic wasn’t such a big fan.)

All appeared to be OK, there are notes on the back of the packet about their work with farmers and nature-friendly methods.  However, when I opened the box I was hugely disappointed to see that there was a bag inside the cardboard (unlike my usual brand) – do porridge oats really need to havetwo layers of packaging – they are not very likely to go off?  What was even more disappointing though was that they did not respond to my email asking why they felt the need to add in the extraneous bag.  This is not to say that I will not buy their product again, because now I have done some digging I have discovered that unlike Jordans, my usual brand does not state the origin of their oats.  (I have therefore sent an email asking for their oaty origin, but usually, if they are not shouting about it they are not sourcing from the UK.)

My search for packaging information has also resulted in the discovery of a symbol on the cereal box that I had never noticed before – the orange and white arrows in the bottom right corner of the box shown in the picture above.  Whilst this is obviously not a recycling symbol, it does look as though it is related – one could maybe assume that the packaging was made from recycled materials.  Unfortunately this is not the case as a quick search around the Jordans website revealed.  The intertwined arrows merely show that the Company is complying with European regulations.  Companies over a certain size (turnover) or who buy above a threshold of packaging must ‘recover’ that packaging.  In practice this means that the Company pays a certain amount into a scheme which then recovers / recycles a certain proportion of packaging material.  So, in reality the intertwined arrows just mean that Jordans are not breaking the law on packaging waste regulations – not that they are doing anything special to help the environment.

Whilst Jordans are not the only company to put this symbol on their cartons I think that it is certainly misleading – I didn’t know what the symbol meant and I am responsible for ensuring that our company pays a sufficient amount into one of these schemes!

These encourage me to go into the garden, have a general tidy up and see what is about.  I am pleased to say that the garlic that I planted in the front and the back garden is starting to grow, although it is easier to spot in the back garden raised bed than hidden amongst the tulip and allium bulbs that are starting to show in the front garden.  (Maybe one day I will be organised enough to mark where they are when I plant them.)  The hellebores are the main providers of spring growth at the moment, but, somewhat belatedly, I have taken away most of their leaves, as recommended by both Monty Don and Carol Klein.  This has left the earth looking somewhat bare, but did uncover some anemone blanda that I planted some time ago as well as the first signs of growth of the aquilegia.

Elsewhere in the garden we have some winter scent from the sarcococca confusa that we have planted and colour from a winter jasmine and viburnum bodnatense dawn.

In the front garden we have trimmed down all of the grasses, moved some of the zebra grass and pruned the white bramble that we have as a centre piece.  In doing so, we uncovered about a dozen hibernating ladybirds – if they survive for another month or so we should have no trouble with greenfly this year!

The home produce has hit a bit of a hiatus, although the rhubarb is starting to come up and we have lots of shoots on the blackcurrant.  I have all my seeds ready for planting in the next couple of months, although I will mainly be concentrating on beans, courgettes, chillis and salad leaves in the hope of getting some good yields throughout the year (although the aubergine is an experiment probably doomed to failure).  If successful I will move on and add one or more new types of produce next year.

I am trying seeds from the Real Seed Company this year.  I am hopeful that as they are all seeds grown on their farm in Wales there may be a better chance that they will grow here in Northamptonshire.  They also encourage seed saving and send instructions with the seeds.

It is also noticeable how many herbs have survived the Winter – I have lots of oregano, some sage, wild basil, rosemary, and burnet all looking healthy so far (and I have some hopes for the fennel that has been in for the last two years and is much beloved of hoverflies).  The chives are also starting to show bright green shoots amongst the darker spots of the garden.  Next year I will be adding borage (for bees) and sorrel (for soups) to the mix as well as more thymes and lavender (also for the bees).