Pottering around at the Lodge

Kojak stayed over last night so we started the day off at the Bill HERE where the highlights included Great Northern and Black and Red-throated Diver, a Fulmar, a few regular seaducks, a couple of Sandwich Terns and the most unusual record was a single Yellowhammer, which are common on the Peninsula but scarce at the actual Bill. 

Kojak had a Tawny Owl from the Airbnb carvan yesterday night so I put out the noc-mig last night and still need to go through that. 

Aftter the Bill we then quickly checked out Ferry, HERE, which was pretty quiet before Kojak headed off home and I spent the rest of the day finally getting out into the garden to plant up some seeds for this year's food growing. I planted up a couple of rows of potatoes, using some of last year's crop as seed potatoes, and then sowed Sweetcorn, Tomatoes, Chillies, Peppers and some flowers and put them in the Conservatory propogator to germinate. 

Unfortunately most of the seeds I kept from last year were found by winter rodents who ate the lot so I had to 'buy-in' again although the plan this year was supposed to be to chain last year's crops. Will increase security next year. 

There were a few moths in the twin actinic last night including the year's first Clouded Drabs and Twin-spot Quaker (also Common and Small Quakers) and this afternoon I put the MOL Lure out and caught two presumed Early Oak Piercers, Pammene giganteana. Now on 16 species of moth for the year. 

Yellowhammer at the Bill

Early Oak Piercer aka Early Oak Gall Moth, Pammene giganteana. Only 16 previous records for Sussex according to the website HERE and looks like the first for the Peninsula. 

A bit of Clouded Drab variation (above and below)

The garlic that we planted in November is coming on well and we've still got carrots and spinach in the beds that survived the winter. I stuck two rows of potatoes in the spare space and the rhubarb is beginning to appear in the fence side.  I've been feeding the spinach to the live food for the reptiles. The furthest bed from the camera is planted up with perennial fruits (strawberries, black and redcurrants and also Lovage) so hopefully that will just do its thing and the middle bed is where the sweetcorn, peas and puleses will go. I also put in some potatoes in some of the pots and a good check of the fruit tree hedge on the whole of perimeter looks like its all survived the winter well. So that's the self sufficiency effort plan for this year. The daisies and violets are coming up in the lawns, primroses and lesser celendines in the front garden and the early spring bulbs that we planted are also going good. 

The 'ditch' in the front garden- I deliberately kept this 'messy' this winter (and got lucky that the flood water was not impeded)  in order to preserve the hollow stalks that might be harbouring invert larvae. We were rewarded last week with Sussex's second record of Mompha divesella which I caught at dusk here- so the plan seems to have worked. Will be going for a lot of wildlife garden features again this year with a meadow in the back and front gardens and are letting all the hedges go. Hopefully over time will build up the insect and breeding bird population in the garden.