Oh Harvey, poor Harvey!

Despite him being at least as big as the girls, he obviously hasn’t got a clue yet how to behave towards the females. It is very funny to watch, albeit sometimes sad as one of the girls dislikes him big time and won’t let him eat the treats I give them. He is very clingy towards my husband and when he wanders off to places unknown, my husband has to come and ‘rescue’ Harvey. He calls Harvey’s name and Harvey comes scooting and quickly follows my husband back to his run, where he starts crowing again.
Harvey hatched late August and is now 5 months old. He started making noise the last day of the year and is now crowing like there is no tomorrow. Thankfully this is mainly during the day when he stands outside our front or back door crowing as if he is beckoning us to come outside and try some of the tasty bugs he found. Thanks, but no thanks, Harvey, I think I’ll pass.
 
We haven’t had much snow yet, apart from mid December when we had a couple of inches. But so far this year we only had maybe one inch which lasted for a few days. It feels as if the winters are starting later, because when we first moved to Glendevon in 2011 the first sleet always fell in October with the first snow in November. But for the past 3 years, we didn’t get sleet or snow until December and now the last week of January has been pretty mild too. But remember the Beast from the East in 2018? It started the end of February 2018, so anything can happen! Let’s hope not though, because we were snowed in for 5 days until a neighbour dug us out with his tractor.

My husband and I planted a few more trees during the nice, sunny spell we’ve had in the designated patch of land close to our home which is to become a mini woodland.
For years I have been sowing tree seeds, like acorns, chestnuts and beech nuts and also saved a few saplings which self seeded. Our neighbours have very kindly allotted a piece of land on which we can plant the young trees. This is going to beneficial for all of us and for wildlife too: the trees and shrubs will prevent snow drifting onto our path, they will also absorb a lot of rain which reduces flooding and more birds mean fewer caterpillars and aphids which destroy our vegetables.
The trees we planted in January were chestnuts from a neighbouring tree and sown by our nieces in 2018 and when the trees are big, they can say:”I’ve grown this tree!”
If you have the patience, planting trees, shrubs or a hedge really pays off in terms of attracting wildlife. When we moved to Glendevon there were some big trees, but hardly any hedges or shrubs and the first thing we did was plant a wildlife hedge consisting of hawthorn, sloe and rosehips. We also planted shrubs like cotoneaster, berberis and holly and of course flowers.

Regeneration takes time and requires patience, because it took around 7 years for house sparrows to come to our garden and 10 years for a nuthatch to discover (and stay in) our garden. Nuthatches are one of the very few birds which are thriving and increasing in numbers and 2 years ago our garden was the second most northerly location nuthatches had been spotted, but now there are nuthatches in Blair Atholl! I find all of this fascinating as according to the RSPB nuthatches only usually fly for 1 mile after growing up, with the occasional bird flying much further, which must be ours as there not  many trees surrounding our house yet.