Today is butterfly day

Iford today hosts a wonderful community event called "Butterfly Day", which is a celebration and exploration of the wildlife that we enjoy in the valley here at Iford.  Click here for details.

In association with Butterfly Conservation, moth traps were set up last night, and a fantastic haul of around 60 different species of large moths are now on display.  These will be released again at the end of the afternoon, of course!

This year we are particularly pleased to welcome the RSPB back with their fascinating displays of birdlife in the valley.  In conjunction with the butterfly and moth brigade, they will be orchestrating wildlife walks during the afternoon around the meadows and hillsides.

And there's a little bonus for those with an interest in chiropterophilia too.  The Vincent Wildlife Trust, with the help of Natural England which administers the Special Site of Scientific Interest in the valley, has set up an infrared camera to allow us to watch the baby Greater Horseshoe Bats in the barn.  This protected species is very rare indeed, and so it is a great privilege to be able to see inside such a healthy roost.

It all kicks off at 11:30am, so we hope to see you later!  And the best thing about Butterfly Day...?  It's free to enter!

The tearoom will be open from 12 until 5, and the garden open as usual from 2pm.

A post for the mottephiliacs amongst you

Today there was a flurry of excitement (which, considering how busy the day was, was an achievement in relative terms) when a garden visitor was quite sure that he had spotted a rare tiger moth flittering and fluttering against the window of the manor front door.

He said, if I recall correctly, that it was a scarlet tiger moth.  Upon examination of the wonderful www.ukmoths.org.uk we have concluded that the identification was accurate, although we aren't sure of quite how rare it is.

This all bodes well for Iford's wildlife day on July 3rd this year, when Butterfly Conservation and the RSPB will be joining us, sponsored by the NFU Mutual, from 12 - 5pm.  These days are great fun for parents and children alike, are free to attend, and a really brilliant addition to the start of the summer holidays with face-painting, photo competitions, butterfly walks around the valley and such like.

The tearoom will be open from 12pm on that day, serving a range of homemade cakes, cream teas, ice creams and such like and the garden will be open as usual from 2 - 5pm - entry to the wildlife day, though, is free for all.

Have a look at the post from last year's butterfly day, and then cross your fingers for good weather.

And what of that beautiful moth?  We opened the door and released it onto a rosemary bush.

Earwig-oh, earwig-oh, earwig-oh...

Just a question really...

Has anyone else suddenly had the most enormous hatching of earwigs?  There's one small area of corridor in the house which has seemingly, and suddenly, become the mating ground for all Forficula auricularia.  


They all came out last night, and are now littering the flagstones.  Any thoughts?

Butterflies flutter by...

Your regular author apologises for the lack of posts over the past month - he has been taking his Masters exams at the Royal Agricultural College and then catching up on the piles of post which built up during the period!  Over the next few weeks I hope to bring you up to date on the past month at Iford, starting with the wonderful events of "butterfly day", yesterday.

Run jointly between Butterfly Conservation and Iford Arts, this wonderful free event is aimed at both children and adults, and was held this year on Sunday 27th June in the baking heat of a glorious weekend.  With England playing Germany that afternoon, those that came to Iford had the better fortune, avoiding the disappointment of a somewhat predictable televised exit from that esteemed sporting competition.

The lepidopterists and other wildlife experts had set up traps overnight in the Iford valley, and the 80 species of moth caught were on display for inspection by the 250 plus children and accompanying adults that visited us on the day.  [When the list of sightings both for butterflies and moths is available, it will be posted on this blog].

Inside the marquee, kindly donated by NFU Mutual Insurance, there were activities galore, including storytelling, paint-a-butterfly (or moth!), decorate a butterfly cupcake, and perhaps most popular of all, facepainting.

For the more inquisitive of our younger visitors there was a treasure hunt, which encouraged children to learn about trees through exploration and research, and for the adventurous, guided walks through the long wild flower meadows were available for keen-eyed butterfly-spotters.  The photographically entered a competition on the day of butterflies and moths sighted during these walks, and hopefully we can post the winning image on this blog soon.

Butterfly friendly plants were available from a stall run by Downside Nurseries in Westwood, which proved popular with those wishing to bring more of a flutter to their gardens.

Many visitors, we are told, discovered Iford for the first time: to them a big "hail and well met".  The tearoom was very busy (mostly ice creams this weekend), and we were delighted to be able to provide a rare and relatively safe environment where children could learn through the medium of discovery and play, that not all moths need be crushed immediately under foot!

The laughter of children truly is infectious, and whilst the garden itself may not be particularly suitable for young visitors owing to its historic nature, to be able to offer a free day of natural discovery for the young is greatly rewarding.  Thank you to all that made it happen.

Toads and rooks - must be breeding time!

The last week saw two fauna-related sights which are no doubt very common, but which are perhaps unusual to witness.

This evening we were witness to an extraordinary fly-by of an enormous group of rooks.  It wasn't just our average parliament of rooks arguing away however, this was much, much larger, and appeared to be a large grounp attempting to displace our resident population from the hanging beech wood behind the manor.  By the time I managed to get my camera out, the largest of the waves had settled back down behind the trees, but I did manage to catch the gist with my rather crummy autofocus - see what you think.



I would love it if any ornithologist could tell us whether or not rooks are known for displacing other colonies or whether this is my complete mis-interpretation of what was going on.

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Just before the weekend, a cacophany was raised outside the back door.  Whatever could it be?, thought those sat in the kitchen happily enjoying a cup of tea.  Well, opening the door revealed the vocal identity:  the merry toad.  Or more accurately, many particularly hopeful toads.

It was raining hard, and the wet weather had encouraged them out from their damp mossy homes.  But in their search for a pond, they had inadvertently ended up next to the bins, an insalubrious place for a romantic rendez-vous, you might think.

I have always wondered what the collective noun should be for a group of these maligned creatures.  But it is now quite clear: in this case it was most definitely an "orgy" of toads.

Warm, at 2 degrees.

Amazing just how warm it feels, yet it's only 2 degrees outside.  Fortunately for the birds and wildlife we are currently experiencing something of a mini-thaw, and the south facing slopes are beginning to show some earth again, revealing seeds, berries and bugs.


Overnight though, it is still very cold indeed, and so yesterday we constructed a natural shelter (pictured), to give some protection to our chilly birds at night.  Using half-pruners we lopped off the arms of our former Christmas tree (a fir this year, so a bit less scratchy than a spruce).  Placing an underlayer of branches on the floor of a sheltered spot under a wall, we formed an evergreen cavity with the remaining branches on top.

A plate of food outside encouraged its discovery and I'm pleased to note that, judging by the footprints, someone used the new shelter last night.  Hopefully we've provided a useful service; one can at least try!

A solution: Frozen Fatballs

Our avian friends are having a really desperate time of it with the weather so cold and I'm sure that a lot of people are putting out fat balls, nuts and other high-fat foods to keep the smaller birds alive.  I love the way that robins in particular will come and ask you for more when they have finished.  This bold little fellow (pictured sitting on a tree peony), alerted us to a problem with "his" (they are very territorial!) fatball: it was frozen solid.

It seems that the food we put out, if at all moist, simply goes completely solid after an hour or so, fat balls in particular; the solution we have found is to pass them through a cheese grater, and put out the resulting pile of fat-soaked nuts.  Taking them in once in a while allows them to thaw quickly, and the grains seem easier for the birds to eat.

I'm sure that the great- and blue-tits were grateful too, but our plucky young robin thanked us personally, sitting on his peony branch bobbing his head, and flying over to say hello when any of the family comes past the box tree in which he lives.

New Year snow

Like a lot of other people we are snowbound with more frozen days to come. A few hardy (or foolhardy) souls have attempted to drive into the valley with predictable results: going downhill is easy with gravity but getting back up a one-in-six gradient is altogether a different matter.

Not much visible wildlife other than a few hungry robins (fatballs are popular) but a lot of tracks in the snow - one of them a boar badger with feet like a yeti. At least you can see which setts are occupied.

Before the freeze we had a visitation of well over fifty fieldfares in the orchard. They had a banquet on rotting apples. This lead to a lot of shouting at each other and a drunken brawl between two males, feathers flying. Most years the same thing occurs with the ducks in the carpark by the river. Since then the only bird life of note has been one of the ravens flying low and trying to avoid being mobbed by the rooks, and the resident buzzard crossly leaving its branch on the drive whenever someone walks up there.