Birds And Seeds

   The weather has turned greyer and colder with more rain.I am back to work for the next four nights so the gardening and allotment work stops.I saw this Nuthatch today in our garden eating seed mix from the tall bird feeder.I topped them all up today as the birds are hungrily feeding.

 The Japanese Painted Fern is growing magnificently in a pot.I have used lichen and moss in other pots and dropped off our roof by the House Sparrows to cover the soil underneath it.This will provide an organic mulch layer to stop it drying out.The growth of the leaves has been lush,so i think its working.

The Lady Bird Poppies were decimated by the heavy summer rains but they must have been pollinated because there are about six pepper pot seed heads in the sunken border.I'm hoping these drop seeds in the sunken border.I have some Patty Plum type Poppy seed heads at the allotment to bring back home too to scatter across the border.
  Collecting seeds is a great way of propagating more plants of the varieties that you like.You can also swap seeds,or give relatives and friends bonus seeds.Gardeners have been doing that for centuries I think.
 The other surprise yesterday was seeing a Sparrowhawk sitting on the solar light in the Strawberry patch.I have seen him three times now,and each time he sits looking at me through the conservatory window.I hope to get a photo one day,but every time I pick the Camera up he flies off to the shed then away.He was beautiful with a speckled back,white breast feathers,and bright yellow beak and eyes.
 He is terrorising the garden birds but he is amazingly agile in the air.I have a soft spot for Raptors..