January Garden

Rather different from earlier posts!
Under the fleece are plants like American Land Cress, Pak Choi, and Cornsalad. They look OK and I expect them to grow away well once things warm up a bit.

Things may not be so successful in the veg plot. The leeks - just visible on the left - are still pretty skinny but should survive the snow and ice. Others may be less fortunate - the Sorrel and Red Mustard already looked a bit sorry for themselves after the earlier frost before Christmas. I'll be interested to see how the Green in Snow gets on! I probably should have fleeced the lot in mid-December, but then no-one expected the winter to turn out how it did.

The main part of the garden, not looking like winter gardens do in magazines. They always take photos when there's been a hard frost - not something which happens that often, but beautiful whaen it does. All we're doing in the garden at the moment is feeding the birds.

Once bittern twice shy...

Like an ice-rink underfoot, but bright blue above, so on the bus to Beeston, for a short walk to the Marina. Chips and a warm welcome from Tony at the Boat House Cafe, then on to Attenborough Nature Reserve for some birding! Having got into lichens this winter, I'm a bit late getting started this year.

Plenty to see - the 'usual suspects' such as mallard, tufted ducks (which are super), great crested grebes, etc., and watched a flock of greylag and canada geese. Spotted a teal, which I don't remember seeing last year, followed by a goosander, a shovellerand a pair of wigeon, which I do remember.

Then went to visit the new hide, the Tower Hide, which has a great view over Clifton Pond. The photo below is taken from the hide. A few minutes after taking this photo, one of the other birdwatchers said 'Bittern! On the ice!' And there it was, standing rather knock-kneed with its beak in the air, looking as if it didn't really know why it was there. Then another bittern appeared, standing on a post at the edge of the reedbed. We had a couple of minutes to watch both before they disappeared back into the reeds. This is a really unusual occurrence: bitterns are rarely seen during the day, even less on a sunny Sunday afternoon when everybody is about. I may never see another one!


Attenborough is a pretty special place and is part of a unique landscape: below is the distinctive steam plume from the rather notorious Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, site of at least one climate change protest recently.