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The Garden and Wildlife.

At Alfriston we are blessed with a huge and varied wildlife population. The house is already noted as a summer roosting site for quite rare, Natterer bats. The whereabouts of their winter roost is unknown but the nearby church would be the obvious place to carry out a survey. Pipistrelles and Whiskered bats also roost occasionally and are usually found feeding on most nights during the summer. Other nocturnal visitors are generally larger and ground dwelling.

Here's a surprise, 4 p.m.19th April 2004. This little chap must have got seriously confused to be out in broad daylight.

During July or August we hold a bat and moth evening to popularise this most neglected and misunderstood of British mammals. It is always very well attended and although the bats do not always perform to order, it is always great fun. Bats are tracked using a detector that converts their high frequency sonar into more audible, low frequency sound. Using these detectors, we can gauge the health of the bat population by monitoring how many are flying and how often. More importantly, as each species of bat has its own "signature tune" it helps us to identify the species in the locality. The moths are caught in a specially designed trap and released unharmed once they have been counted and identified. Catching the moths and other insects in these traps also helps us to gauge the health of the local moth population and therefore the potential food stocks for the bats we are trying to conserve. Several species of migrants were recorded in 2003 which mirrored the findings we were seeing in the butterfly populations. 

(L) Elephant's Head (C) Poplar Hawk (R) Privet Hawk.

Oak Eggar 

(L) Normally a resident of Mediterranean regions but now firmly established in the South of the country, the spider Argiope Bruennechii turned up in the Herb Garden in August 2003. Although harmless, its wasp-like colours, shout, "KEEP OFF!". (R) The eggs are laid in a silken case that is extremely strong. It looks astonishingly like a ripe seed pod from a love-in-a-mist plant.

 Although the garden is plagued by slugs and snails, I have always been surprised by the apparent lack of hedgehogs. There have been only a few occasions when they have left behind any evidence of their having passed through. I have made several waterproof piles of logs in the orchard to encourage them to stay with us but so far, only mice, wrens, bees and the occasional slow-worm have taken up residence.

  (L) I am a sucker for small furry mammals so this little vole is allowed a strawberry or two. (C) This baby wood mouse expended so much energy transporting this acorn the 15 feet to its hidey hole that it had to stop for a nap every few minutes. (R) Turning out the compost heap can be a traumatic time for both wildlife and gardener alike. These little voles were rescued in a bucket and returned to safety as soon as the new heap was ready. 

Voles and mice also play their part. It seems their lot in life is to become food for Kestrels by day and owls by night. Although there doesn't seem to be a dramatic decrease in the mouse or vole population, there are certainly more owl pellets to be found in the orchard every morning as Tawny owls in particular, seem to be becoming more common . This may not be true as they could have just as easily have been displaced from somewhere else. (possibly from a huge, rotten, ash tree alongside the main road that was felled in 2002). I will be constructing an owl box to put in one of the bigger trees during the winter of 2005 to see if I can encourage them to breed here. On quiet days, there is just a chance that you may see their other main enemies, weasels and stoats. They are generally passing through but can occasionally be seen hunting on the vegetable plot. Mink have been known to frequent the garden but thankfully I have always managed to trap and dispose of them before they have caused too much harm.

 Foxes have always been regular visitors and can be a nuisance, as the cubs, in particular, chase each other through the borders and scatter flowerpots everywhere. In 2003, they took a distinct fancy to carrots. They didn't eat any, but just dug them up and scattered them all round the garden. I often dig up duck or chicken eggs or strangely, golf balls, that they have left behind to eat later and then forgotten where they put them. One fox has now taken to visiting in the daytime although it prefers to sleep in the relative safety of the reed bed on the other side of our boundary stream before venturing into the garden at night. Although I don't feed it, it is relatively tolerant of sharing the garden with me during evening watering sessions. Badgers have also discovered the garden recently. The drought of 2003 brought them far from their normal feeding areas in the search for food. In their hunt for worms, they have taken to digging up the embankment that I lovingly created alongside the stream in the winter of 2002 and they have now started to rip a lawn to pieces to get at the leatherjackets just underneath the surface. Whether they will become permanent residents remains to be seen. I can only hope that winter flooding will put them off visiting us again next year. 

Whilst extremely cute, grey squirrels can cause serious damage in the garden.

Another animal that I would regard as a pest, are the resident grey squirrels. Although they are relatively few in number they cause a lot of damage by stripping the bark from trees and raiding birds nests looking for food. They also decimate the flower beds and lawns as they dig up and eat all the bulbs that I plant. I have decided against "removing" them, as every time I have done so in the past, others move in to take their place. My feeling is that, if they feel they are "locals", they will defend "their patch" and see off any outsiders and numbers will eventually strike a balance. I now plant all my bulbs in pots surrounded by chicken wire which seems to deter them to a certain extent, although they are very adept at digging out the whole thing and just nibbling off the growing shoots instead of the bulb. Luckily, as the garden tends to be underwater for much of the year, rabbits and moles have never managed to gain a foothold. The odd one or two that do try to set up home are caught and then released elsewhere.

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