Tag Archives: pied fly catcher

The Pond

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Probably one of the best things anyone can do for wildlife is to put in a pond; a bit of water attracts a lot of life. We dug our pond in the Autumn of 2008 and within days of a small pool forming, creatures started moving in.
We didn’t go for a little pond, there seemed no point as we have the space, plus the larger the pond the more stuff you are going to attract. We have also planted it up with native species such as; starwort, water plantain, flowering rush, bog cotton, yellow flag iris, native water lily. The consequence has been a buzzing and bustling habitat. A huge amount has descended on the pond, under the water there are; newts, frogs, toads, water beetles, larvae of all sorts, water snails, water boatmen and unidentifiables. On top of the water; water skaters, whirly gigs, damselflies, dragonflies, broad bodied chasers. All around the pond bird life thrives, with a pied fly catcher bringing on its brood in a nest box just near the pond, swallows and house martins swooping in scooping up insects, a (very shy) heron who often is spotted flying away from the pond and we know the red deer come to drink there as we regularly see their footprints in the mud.

The actual barn and a bit of an update on the goings on

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So of course this is all about the barn, not just our lives here. Our fantastic friend Dave is our architect (DW Enterprises Splott Road Cardiff) and as both Mags and he are so special the design work is our house warming present, there is probably no way we can thank them enough! We have the final designs and Dave is now working them up so that we can go to building regs to get all the final agreements. We are going to ask for a couple of small additions through planning permission but hopefully nothing that will freak the planners out. Inside is beautiful with the downstairs middle room open to the roof and a fantastic bridge between the two upstairs bedrooms. It’s becoming easier to visualise the whole place as time goes on.

I also have my dream of having a larder included in the design. When I was a little girl my nan from Yorkshire had a pantry, she was such a fantastic cook and she really inspired me to enjoy eating and cooking good food. So I want a cool larder where I can store all our home grown produce.

Talking of which we have also been busy digging beds and preparing the ground for a polytunnel whilst at the same time desperately trying to keep hundreds of seedlings alive!

The land is all coming to life around us and it’s such a different place now, all the different greens are quite breathtaking and exciting.

We have also met our other neighbours across the river and again we are so lucky to have such nice people living here. They have very kindly offered their shower and as they have it set up downstairs in their lobby we can use it whenever we need it. John and Pat have lived here 20 years and so have a fantastic understanding of the local wildlife. They have seen over their time here, an otter every autumn who follows the salmon up when they do their run up the river, dippers nest all along the river, pied fly catchers swoop up and down the valley and will nest in boxes put up for them, woodpeckers thrive as does the local gosshawk (especially on the local chickens!)

Finally on the matter of chickens we have 12 new inhabitants who are getting to live in our barn before us.. and I am already getting a sense that they are very naughty.. After escaping the one area we hoped to confine them to one managed to kick over a paint pot, she is now called Blue Foot.. still haven’t found out how you get paint off chickens!