With cold nights down to -5C currently, most trees are now shedding their leaves and there’s a carpet of leaves under the Norway maple (spisslønn), a tree that prefers the shallow drier soils in the garden (compared to sycamore / platanlønn). A treecreeper (trekryper) calling can be heard at 0:38! The large leaves are very useful for protecting less hardy plants in winter.
Bramblings (bjørkefink) are common breeding birds at higher elevations, but it’s just possible that they will breed here one day. This is the closest I’ve got with a male singing the last few days in the garden, here atop a Norway maple (spisslønn), the flowers still waiting after two very cold weeks!
After the storm some days ago now, it was interesting to see how evenly the seed from Norway maple / sycamore and birch (spiss- og platanlønn og bjørk) was spread evenly over the whole garden…it’s easy to imagine how the more open parts of the garden would quickly transform to forest given the chance!
Most trees had an enormous production of seed and berries this year following the hot summer in 2018 and mild winter last year.
Bullfinches (dompap) again feeding on maple seeds, here right outside the kitchen window!
A bullfinch (dompap) pair feeding on Norwegian maple (spisslønn) seed! I’ve seen them before in the tree taking the seeds, but not on the ground before!
Low flying helicopters in the garden…
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
