It has been a cold and wet start to 2021, and in places the garden resembles a bog. I have purchased a few bare root plants of copper beech hedge to use as a screen to hide my small shed (the existing plants that I had hoped would do the job just hadn’t worked out), but I haven’t been able to plant them yet as when I tried to dig over the area I came across water just a couple of inches below the surface! So the plants are currently sitting in a bucket of water in the conservatory waiting for the soil to dry out a bit.
I don’t heat the greenhouse and the temperature has fallen to -4.5C a few nights this January. I am storing my citrus plants in there and making sure that I am keeping them dry whenever there is a cold spell forecast – fingers crossed that they survive. More tender plants spend the winter in the conservatory that benefits from the heat from the house and so far the temperature hasn’t fallen below +2C.
On 31 January I took part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch in my garden – it was also the day that the first daffodil flower opened in my garden. This is the world’s biggest garden wildlife survey and the records provide a vital snapshot of the UK’s birds each winter so the RSPB can monitor trends and find out how our garden birds are going. The 2021 birdwatch took place over 3 days from the 29 to 31 January where you spend an hour counting the birds that you see. I choose an hour in the morning when the birds are busy having their breakfast as I know that this is when I have the most feathered visitors in the garden and this year I counted the following birds:
| Blackbird 7 | Blue Tit 4 | Chaffinch 4 | Coal Tit 1 |
| Collared Dove 2 | Dunnock 2 | Goldfinch 4 | Great Tit 3 |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker 2 | Jackdaw 1 | Long-Tailed Tit 8 | Magpie 1 |
| Nuthatch 1 | Robin 2 | Siskin 2 | Stock Dove 2 |
| Wood Pigeon 4 |
I also saw two male and a female pheasant as well as a couple of grey squirrels. Other regular visitors to the garden this year are a male, two female and a baby muntjac deer. There has been a noticeable reduction in greenfinches visiting my garden over the last couple of years. I used to get a mixed flock of goldfinches, greenfinches and siskins and they used to take up all the feeding spots on the sunflower feeders, much to the annoyance of the great tit and blue tits. But now it is a rare event to see a greenfinch. However, word has spread around the blackbird population about my garden, as in the cold spells I’ve been feeding between 15 and 20 of them each morning. They are the first birds to come for breakfast, closely followed by the robins.
