Tipton's Croft

A wild field garden in Bomere Heath, Shropshire, England

Author: tiptonscroft

  • The sootballs are growing up

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    There may only be three of them now but the moorhen chicks are getting bigger, losing their fur and gaining their true feathers and, gradually, their independence.

  • Summer solstice

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    Bird’s-foot trefoil in the meadow, rosebay willowherb and hedge bedstraw around the edges. Happy summer solstice!

  • Green, green, grass

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    Cock’s-foot
    Common couch
    Crested dog’s-tail
    False oat-grass
    Floating sweet grass
    Meadow foxtail
    Perennial rye grass
    Rough meadow grass
    Sweet vernal-grass
    Timothy
    Tufted hair-grass
    Yorkshire-fog

    It all might just look like, well, grass, but when you look closer you’ll see a lot of variety, particularly at this time of year. They might not have the gaudiness of wildflowers but they have their own more subtle beauty. Here are the twelve species we’ve found at Tipton’s Croft. There may be more!

  • Summer’s here

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  • They’re not moorhens!

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    Out of nowhere (well, probably a quiet corner of the island) a gang of day old mallard chicks has appeared. We’ve not seen any adults for a few days so they have been very secretive about the nest.

  • Moorhens update

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    Five little sootballs spotted today with their parents teaching them life skills.

  • Sootballs!

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    We had almost given up on the nest of moorhen eggs (it has been well over three weeks since we first spotted them) but suddenly six little ‘sootball’ moorhen chicks have appeared, with both adults.

    Here’s one of the adults teaching the chick to feed (on water crowfoot).
    And three chicks closely following an attentive adult.

  • Early morning mist, moorhens, greylags and mallards

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    And tadpoles!

  • Eggs come and go

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    A quick visit to the island to see why there are no signs of ducklings reveals an empty mallard nest (no evidence of eggs at all of the eggs that were there) but nearby, very well hidden, a full moorhen nest.

    We think there’s only one moorhen so it’s unclear whether the eggs will hatch. Island is now out of bounds for the next three weeks. Watch this space!

  • Morning mist

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  • Clever birds

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    We’ve started using a temporary plug to block the entrance to the barn owl box during the day, so that other animals can’t nest in it. Unfortunately we didn’t take into account how clever jackdaws are, as you can see (skip to 2:00 if you can’t wait!).

    Within a few hours the jackdaws filled the owl box with twigs and grass to form a formidable nest.

  • Egg surprise

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    A quick trip onto the island to look for moorhen nests and instead we find a female mallard sitting on a clutch of six eggs in a nest made from dried bulrush stems and duck down.