Thursday 1/1/26  On our journey along the river bank, as we approached the mill Eddie saw a great white egret flying which landed in the next field. We also saw a pair of swans in the river which swam past.

It was frosty this morning so we lit the fire in the wagon and I transferred kindling wood from the buckets into the wooden planter we brought to the wagon last time, which had dried out. I put the empty buckets in the compound which has tidied the wagon.

A few weeks ago I got a small pallet from the fire site, today we took it apart with our breaker bar to use the wood for making a nest box for blue tits. Eddie got all the nails out of the wood and I cut the pieces to size with my mitre saw, then assembled it.

We’ll re-use the camera from the hedgehog box under the wagon, as we have never seen hedgehogs in there. I pulled the hedgehog box out and removed the camera and fitted it in the bird box, connected the camera and adjusted the angle slightly to give a full view inside the box.

Eddie cut down the sunflowers and removed the supporting wires as the plants had died back and birds had eaten the seeds. Eddie put the debris in the compost bay, levelled mole hills near the garden and used the soil to fill holes in the ground to prevent anyone tripping in them.

The butchers in Swaffham where Eddie buys our sausage rolls advertised Festive Turnovers all through December, Eddie tried to get them several times but they were never available, so I decided to make my own which I brought today and heated in our oven above the fire for lunch. They are bacon, sausagemeat stuffing, brie and cranberry sauce in puff pastry.

In the afternoon Eddie filled the bird feeders and I put a small amount of nyger seed in one of the feeders we cleaned last time to see if finches would eat it. I filled their drinking water and put the pastry flakes left over from our lunch on the bird table.

Hedgehogs like their boxes surrounded with natural materials for insulation, camouflage and nesting material, so I moved the box back under the wagon and put the sticks back around it. We will add dry leaves for nesting material.

Thursday 8/1/26  We saw a cormorant on our way to the mill which flew over later when we were working, we also saw the great white egret again. My first job was filling the bird food, we watched great tits, blue tits and a robin feeding on the camera screen while having tea in the wagon by the fire as it was another frosty day.

Bulbs are coming up in our garden around the cherry tree and in the middle of the grindstones, as well as snowdrops on the river bank which should flower soon.

Our main job today was finishing and installing the blue tit nest box we made last week. I brought a 25mm drill bit as our drill set doesn’t have one, this is the entrance hole size that blue tits need. I drilled the hole in the front of the box and filed the edges smooth. Eddie fitted a metal plate to stop predators getting in, then painted water based wood treatment on the roof and I nailed roofing felt over the join to stop water getting in.

I got the ladder and fitted the box on the gable end of the visitor centre, I put boards down to protect the slate roof and fibreglass gulley. I connected the camera extension cable and stapled it down the wall, along under the gutter and behind the downpipe, ready to go underground across to the wagon .

We connected the camera cables together over the ground to test the installation which worked well. We had lunch in the wagon with the fire alight watching birds feeding on the screen again.

After lunch we tried to dig a trench for the camera cable, but as expected, the ground was still frozen solid, so we’ll have to do that another time. We disconnected the cables and coiled one end up under the wagon and the other in the visitor centre.

The blue notice board used at the open days was in the way in the visitor centre, so we put it in the loft, there was room for it as we cleared the loft recently.

One of our insect hotels was leaning over as the legs were loose, I brought it over to the table and repaired it using some of the screws Fred gave us recently, then took it back to the meadow and staked it down. We noticed seedlings are coming up in the meadow.

A pair of swans were in the river by our bridge and on our way back we saw a heron flying above the river, a muntjac in a field and a cormorant flying at The Maltings again.

Graham Bartlett  

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